Older hen laying shell-less eggs? Any ideas? UPDATE #9

KellyHM

Crowing
11 Years
Sep 10, 2008
7,097
50
289
Lakeland, FL
I got an EE hen about a month ago to add to my flock. She's suppose to be about 1.5 years old. After 4-5 days of settling in she laid a normal egg, then the next day she laid one that was thin-shelled which broke in my hand when I picked it up. Ever since then she's been laying them without shells. A week and a half ago she seemed to have one break inside her, so I brought her in and doctored her for a couple days, then booted her back out. Now back to shell-less. Her attitude/appetite/etc. has been great this whole time. Her poo and everything else is normal. It's just the eggs. Any ideas??? I don't want to have to make soup out of her, but if she doesn't shape up soon...

ETA: She eats layer crumbles, free ranges, gets some treats, and has oyster shell available at all times.
 
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Do yours go back to normal quickly though? She did that then started laying them shell-less...going on 3 weeks now.
 
My older hen does that too She hasn't gone back to normal. She is 4-5 though so maybe that is normal then, I don't know.
 
I have had this problem with 5 of my Easter-eggers, but never had that problem with my production reds or barred rocks.

Not sure if it matters, but all the EEs were from McMurray; they were from 2 separate, year-apart batches of 10 each. So, of 20 EEs, 5 laid shell-less eggs.

I'm going to try Ideal Poultry next time and see if this is an EE thing or a genetics thing.

Oh....one more thing. Don't let anyone tell you this is a lack of calcium issue. I have isolated 4 of these birds, and they go through oyster shell at the same rate my other girls do.
 
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Update - today this hen was egg bound! Like I really needed something else to deal with. I finally got the egg out of her and it was very rough, which I guess is why she was having problems with it. At least it had a shell on it. Now maybe things will get back to normal!!!
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Oh, and she's fine...no prolapses afterwards or anything like that...right back to pecking around 5 minutes after I washed her up and lubed her.
 

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