Pullet is laying 2 eggs in same sitting UPDATE page 4 Now Lethargic

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WingItRanch

Crowing
Premium Feather Member
May 10, 2024
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East Texas
Ok here's a weird one. I keep pretty good track of each of my pullets egg laying. My best layer is a Blue Australorp. Since she started over a month ago, she's given me one sturdy good sized egg per day. She takes one break day once a week but as gone as long as 14 days in a row without a break.

Well, not anymore. She took the 12th off, laid an egg the 13th, 14th, 15th then took the 16th off. Then on the 17th she laid 2 eggs at once. Fully formed- each weighing 54g. I thought it was my mistake and I somehow missed the egg the day before but I checked the camera and it didn't make sense. She's also the only one that lays the darker brown and she's the only one that refuses to lay in the nest boxes.

Then she took 2 days off.

Today she just laid 2 eggs in a row! I'm positive. I watched her do it!

I've never heard of this. Should I be concerned? Both eggs were large with perfect shells.
 

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I read this wrong, this is the second time that she laid two eggs? Poor thing! :(

If she continues laying two eggs every time she has to lay, then that would certainly be a concern. A chicken that does that can easily prolapse or damage their vent in other ways. The only way to stop such an egg issue as this one is to get her a hormone implant, but that is very expensive and you will rarely find anyone who is willing to put an implant inside a chicken.
 
Yes! 2 eggs on Thursday and 2 today. I'll definitely keep an eye on her but not sure what I can do to help. We've been losing daylight like crazy and she's been skipping more days than usual so maybe that's messing with her cycle? She also seems to be eating more oyster shell than the other girls.
 
I had a RIR who did that regularly. She was my favorite bird, very personable and always greeted me and wanted cuddles. It was just so taxing on her to lay multiple eggs at a time that it severely shortened her lifespan; she died as a two year-old bird. I just found her on the nestbox dead one day. It's unfortunate but there's not much you can do to prevent reproductive malfunctions, all you can do is just try to supplementally support their egg laying and hope that it's a temporary problem while they're working out the kinks in laying eggs.
 
Yes! 2 eggs on Thursday and 2 today. I'll definitely keep an eye on her but not sure what I can do to help. We've been losing daylight like crazy and she's been skipping more days than usual so maybe that's messing with her cycle? She also seems to be eating more oyster shell than the other girls.
When a chicken slows down on production due to the changing season, they are not supposed to fill in for the days they missed. Imagine a female missing more than two days. Ouch! That is definitely not supposed to happen. Oyster or egg shell would not be the cause of that-her eggs have perfect shells in the picture. I doubt you are feeding her excess shell, given the fact you seem generally caring about your chickens.
 
Yes! 2 eggs on Thursday and 2 today. I'll definitely keep an eye on her but not sure what I can do to help. We've been losing daylight like crazy and she's been skipping more days than usual so maybe that's messing with her cycle? She also seems to be eating more oyster shell than the other girls.
Laying is largely determined by number of hours of daylight, so she and any other girls would naturally stop for the winter which would be good for her to hopefully reset. Eating more calcium makes sense given the dual eggs.
 

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