OE laying weirdly

[Silviaschicks]

Hi,
I have a Sapphire OE who is about 40 weeks, will be a year old in early June. She started laying in December, and has been laying fine, though some of her eggs were speckled and others weren't. On friday, she layed a soft-shelled egg and hasn't layed since, though she's been up to the laying box several times in a day. She doesn't feel like she has an egg in her, either. Any ideas what's going on? Thanks for the help in advance!

 

[Pentatonchix]

Do you have oyster shell and layer feed easily accessible? @azygous

 

[azygous]

It costs next to nothing to play it safe by treating this young layer with calcium. She has two clues pointing to possible egg binding - the soft or shell-less egg followed by unproductive nest sitting.

Quite often, when you see a shell-less egg, there is another one right behind it. You can't feel them since they are usually higher up in the oviduct when they hang up due to their being more difficult to pass. The calcium supplement encourages strong contractions to help get the egg on its way.

Install her on a thick towel with paper towels under her for clean up ease. This will allow you to monitor what comes down the chute, poop, egg, or broken egg remains. This is important since an antibiotic will be necessary if she has had the yolk break inside her oviduct.

This is the calcium I recommend since it absorbs much more quickly than other forms. Give one a day whole directly into her beak until after the crisis passes.

 

[Silviaschicks]

Update: I fed her calcium yesterday, and she layed today, but the egg is very rough and feels like sandpaper, and is lighter than usual

 

[Silviaschicks]

Another update: I checked the egg's hardness against my counter and it felt really soft. I cracked it and it felt sort of soft-shelled, and there was blood in the yolk. Here are some pictures, the one on the right is the most recent egg:

Here is one of her normal eggs for reference:

 

[azygous]

We can't know that something else may be going on, but your hen does appear to have a calcium deficiency. Therefore, it would be wise to continue the calcium supplement until you see good quality eggs from her. You may see little calcium pimples on the shell. That is when you'll know you can stop the calcium.

 

[aart]

Here are some pictures

Where is the blood?

 

[Silviaschicks]

Where is the blood?

it was in the yolk, don't have any pictures of it sorry