Questions About soft shelled eggs and egg bound chickens

[pokeytolman]

So my wife noticed our 23 week old GLW was walking and acting funny so we looked up the symptoms and suspected she was egg bound . we gave her a bath and as my 12yr old was telling her to push she laid the egg in the water (picture below) . she is new to laying but has had around 5 soft-shell eggs and only one or two normal eggs all the other hens who are all the same age seem to be laying fine , they have free choice oyster shell and are on flockraiser with my wife supplementing with greens. So the questions are this is there a correlation with soft-shells and being egg bound? also does this mean she will continue to do this. and is there anyway to prevent this. Thanks in advance

 

[CMV]

There is a correlation between laying soft shelled eggs and egg binding. The hen's body pushes against the shell to expel an egg during normal laying, but with a soft shelled egg there is nothing solid to push against so the egg is difficult for the hen to push out. She may have a problem with her shell gland. These problems crop up occasionally and are usually unable to be fixed. It could also just be that she is working out the kinks in the plumbing, and may resolve itself in time. I've included a link to my favorite egg quality page. Good luck with her.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publi...ndbook/16/thinshelled-eggs-and-shellless-eggs

Last thought- do you have free choice oyster shells available? They should have access to them now that they are laying.

 

[pokeytolman]

I thought I had seen this somewhere but couldnt find it . yes they do Have free choice oyster shell.
Thanks

 

[emrys]

I have one hen that started dropping soft shelled eggs on the roost at night. It seems to be related to the hot weather. We had a week of below 95 temps and she returned to "normal." Now it's in the upper 90's again and she is back to one softy on the roost and the next day a normal egg in the nest. I'll be interested to see if the problem goes away when the summer heat ends.

 

[BarefootMom]

Get some oyster shells for her. Make them available for whenever she wants them.