New to this - Broken Egg and Weird Egg - New Hens

[aaragus]

Hello all!!

I have recently built a chicken coup in my backyard and have 3 hens and now 2 chicks.

All of my hens are quite young, 4 - 8 months old, not sure of their exact age as I bought them already grown and the seller told me they were 4 months old, but you never know. Anyways..

One of my hens is laying smaller normal egg about once a day and this morning one of the other hens broke her egg before I could get to it. I read up on it and will try the golf ball thing to see if that stops her from breaking anymore, either than that any tips on how I can stop that from happening?

The hen that broke the egg layed an egg this afternoon, but it was the tiniest thin egg and seemed pretty weak.

Is this normal for a new hen?
Would that egg be okay to eat?
There was a bit of blood on the egg, is that normal?

Just to have an idea, they eat mostly leftovers (Beans, Rice, Spaghetti, bread, etc) and I also give them corn every day.

Oh, and the chicks, I am keeping them in a separate area now as the biggest hen killed two chicks, one with a peck on the head and one on the back of another.

All of the chicks and hens live outside, but as I am in Brazil the lowest temperature at night is around 18 degrees celsius and the chicks bundle together in their little hut.


any tips would be greatly appreciated and if anyone can answer my questions that would be helpful.

 

[bleubirds]

Hello,
It sounds like your chickens might not be getting proper nutrients since you are only feeding it your left overs. They might need more grains and calcium in their diet.

I am no pro but that is just my guess.
Good luck!

 

[Den in Penn]

Even with the soft Shell,l the eggs are good to eat. A first time layer often will have a tear and leave a little blood on the egg. Soft shell usually caused by low calcium, but some time new layers can lay one too. To be on the safe side add a calcium supplement like crushed oyster shells. They can use the the protein in meats too, as omnivores they will eat just about anything.

 

[theoldchick]

Welcome to BYC. Yes, young pullets will lay strange, small eggs. Like the other poster suggested add some calcium to the diet and things will eventually work out.

Here's a photo of a my girls first start:




They laid tiny little pullet eggs-the brown one on your right



And somehow those tiny eggs would be double yolkers!



My pullets also had a problem with timing. They'd lay eggs during the night-these had a tendency to be soft shelled-despite the diet being a quality layer feed supplemented free choice grit.

Hope this helps!