Runny Albumin (white part) Help!

[Amazon chicken]

And I mean runny - no thickness at all. Yellow part is fine. She is a 15 month old Maran and is otherwise healthy energetic and red comb. Her eggs 3 months ago were large, dark brown and 2.3 ounces. Her eggs now are enormous - 3.6 today and sometimes the shell is a bit malformed but strong. My hens free range, lots of grass and we give them some goodies - tomatoes, brown rice, bread and occasional fruit. other hens fine and she was recently wormed. This has been going on for 10 weeks - HELP! Could it be an illness or nutritional deficiency of some kind? Since albumin is protein I was thinking maybe protein.

 

[Mahonri]

Do they taste different?

Sounds to me like a feed deficiency of some sort.

I'd feed her a little canned salmon or tuna and see what happens.

 

[arlee453]

There is a genetic issue where a hen will lay watery whites - that may explain it.

Let me see if I can find a reference for you.

http://www.poultryindustrycouncil.ca/factsheets/fs_100.pdf

Here's the reference.

Also keep in mind that the whites do get runnier the older the eggs are.

 

[Amazon chicken]

Thank you for your reply but her eggs were fine last fall and this past spring - perfect in all ways. Oddly, they went from 2.4 ounces to 3.6 and firm upright whites to runny.

I will read the post you sent..

warmly,

Lani

 

[silkiechicken]

I also was thinking some genetic switch was thrown and the up in egg size didn't go up with the associated proteins needed to keep it firm.

 

[Amazon chicken]

That is an interesting thought and it makes sense - do you think more protein would help and if so what kind - I gave her a bit of high quality wet cat food but probably not enough to make a difference.

Lani

 

[silkiechicken]

Well, she's made of protein, and even if you upped it to 20% like "layer supplents" have, it might not help if she is simply not producing the protein. If a gene was down regulated for some reason, more protein won't help. But, you can try. Catfood can have lots of sodium, so I now reccomend feeding a "layer supplement" if you can. That said... my chickens scare off the ferals to steal their food if the cats dish is put out and they are not in bed.