New Welshies not getting calcium?

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

My 2 new Welsh Harlequins are maybe 2 ish years old, and seem fairly well integrated at this point, they have been here perhaps a month, at first they were little egg laying machines, but it has tapered off lately out of 9 hens i get 7-8 eggs, that wouldn’t bother me, but recently i have found a couple soft shell eggs in various water vessels. Once it was in their pool, once in another pool, this morning I found their water bucket overturned (which has never happened before) and there was a broken soft shell in it. Because of my drake i have always offered oyster shells free choice all day and night, the feed they were being fed was a layer feed with calcium, my worry is that they don’t know to go for the calcium i offer, they won’t touch any of the treats i give, peas, mealworms, various garden offerings, etc. they love earth worms after a rain, but those are tough to wrangle enough of for regular treats. Point is i dont know how I would get calcium glucosamate into them.

any suggestions here? Either to teach them about oyster shells or to get them to try treats so i can dose them with calcium?

 

[Isaac 0]

Seth, once they are closed up in the coop at night, I suggest grabbing both of the new WH, and giving them an oral dose of calcium.
If you started receiving softies directly after they arrived it would seem most probable one of them is laying the soft shell egg.
After a few days of doing this, hopefully, you'll see some sort of improvement.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...dications-to-all-poultry-and-waterfowl.73335/

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

I know i at least got some of it into them. I double dosed knowing they wouldn’t get all of it, but i dod coerce them to eat some calcium laced mealworms tonight, little mealworms, calcium and some water, what they didn’t take from the dish they picked off the ground when i tossed it to them. It is not the feeding frenzy with these two that it is with the other 7, they might be good foragers, but they are lousy at a buffet.
This is the egg from this morning and my small success at getting them
To eat mealworms tonight.

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

It’s like they were trying to make me
Breakfast..

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

I should also add that I occasionally find an egg out in the yard that has a very rough.. maybe 120 grit shell. And the shell is very thin. Just picking it up too firmly can crack it. Again, i am only suspecting the harlequins because it started shortly after they arrived, they were on a forage/organic layer feed diet, and i have never seen them go for the oyster shells. One of my pekins is molting, so not getting 9 eggs isnt a shocker, ive been around 7-8 daily. Supplementing the other girls calcium is no trouble, they are pigs .

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

8 nice hard eggs this morning
I am going to try again with the meal worms.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I use layer and starter grower for my flock I have for years. half and half. My drakes must be healthy I have one 10 yrs old June first the others are 5 and 2. I also have a 14 yr old gander, and on 12 yrs old rooster. All healthy.

 

[Isaac 0]

1Ml/bird /day? Or should I try a bit more?

The recommended dose for calcium gluconate using the 23% product is 0.2ml per pound of bodyweight - for a five-pound bird that would be 1ml a day. I would try no more than that.

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

They should know by now, there might be some kind of underlying issue and maybe someone with a similar experience would know but as of now I don't have any explainations.

If it were me I would just buy some fishing worms (the really big succulent nightcrawler kind) and throw those on top of the oyster shell (not sure if "farm grown worms" and not "all natural worms" might kill the ducks according to some eccentric duck keeper but they seem like normal safe worms to me). Feeding them some scrambled eggs with crushed up eggshells in it might help get some calcium back into their bodies, most duck keepers will tell you to do this if for some reason you don't eat the eggs or if a duck is struggling somehow.

I thought about buying some, easier said than done here, about 2-3 weeks ago a major bakery with lots of branches closed without warning... just so happens they owned the company that supplies worms and night crawlers to all the local stores... not saying it cant be done but its not as easy as it was a few weeks ago
I haven’t tried the eggs with them, my original clan won’t touch eggs.

 

[KaleIAm]

What color of oyster shell are you offering? Grey or white? My ducks refused to eat the white to the point of calcium issues and soft shelled eggs. Finally I bought grey and they gobbled it up. Maybe yours are snobby or used to eating the grey kind. Or the other way around, you use grey and they expect the white kind.

..Ahem... Did I hear you correctly, they don't like mealworms? Are you sure they are ducks? Actually, my little snobs wouldn't eat mealworms at first either because they were used to real worms. I soaked the mealworms until the worms absorbed a bit of water and then they would eat them. Now that they are used to the dried mealworms they enjoy them that way, too.

You could try live mealworms from pet stores.