No shelled double yolker?

[Jen1979]

Hi all

We've only owned chickens for about 9 months and are still learning, so apologise in advance if I'm asking silly questions.

One of our hens (I'm not sure which one, its out of two of them that lay the same looking eggs) stopped laying for 3 days and then this morning when I went out there there were two yolks, perfectly formed sitting right next to each other in one of the boxes, without a shell. There was a small piece of what looked like white rubber on top of it.

I assume it was a double yolker egg (which we've had a few of before) and the white rubbery thing was a soft shell that broke because it couldn't contain the yolks?

We had a huge storm here last Saturday with a ton of very loud thunder and its been pouring with rain everyday since. I was wondering if this might just be that she got scared in the storm and her body is trying to re-adjust to laying again? Or does that make no sense at all?

We feed them laying pellets, vegetable scraps, and crushed egg shells. Are we doing something wrong or is this just a one off abnormality that we shouldn't be worried about?

Jen

 

[jackiebr]

probably needs calcium i needed to give them a supplement because my shells were soft the stuff you give them is called oyster shells i was told you can crush and feed them their own shells but i was afraid they would start eating their own eggs

 

[Jen1979]

I have been feeding them their own crushed shells all the time (I was told they would only start pecking their own eggs if you gave them the shells whole) without any dramas...I thought that would give them enough calcium... Maybe they need more?

 

[donrae]

It's probably just a one-off. newer layers do weird things like this all the time, folks just don't realize when they don't keep birds as all the eggs at the store are Nazi-perfect, nothing like that ever shows up in the store! New layers lay no yolks, double yolks, forget to put the shell on, ridges/lumps/bumps on the shell, things like that. It usually takes a day or two to un-glitch her system, and sometimes they just do it sporadically the first few months. Sounds like you're doing everything right!

 

[Jen1979]

Thanks Donrae, I hope I'm doing everything right

She's been laying for about 4 months now, which I guess is probably still fairly new! I think I got concerned because all of their other eggs have been so perfect and they've never missed a day haha I may be expecting too much! I guess I will see all sorts of things as the years go on and I won't worry so much any more