Second egg of the day is soft.

[Gundog75]

I have a Golden Sex Link hen that has been laying for about four/five weeks. She will lay in the morning but about once a week she will get kind of bound up with a second egg. When she finally lays it is a soft shelled egg and occasionally she will lay a third very soft egg. Normally she will not lay the following day. I feed them layer feed and offer oyster shell. Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m sorry but it sounds like that hen has problems with her internal egg laying factory. Her long term prospects are probably not real great.

A hen is supposed to release an egg yolk to start the next egg about 20 minutes after she lays an egg. It takes about a day or a little more for that yolk to make its way through her internal laying factory so she lays once a day. For some reason yours is releasing too many yolks. If she releases two at the same time you will probably get a double yolked egg. But there is some space between when yours is releasing that second yolk. That second egg makes its way through her internal factory but the shell gland only makes a certain amount of shell material in a day. There is not enough shell material for the second egg so it is soft or very thin. With a third egg in the same day it’s even worse.

The danger is that one of those soft eggs might break inside her. That could lead to infection or other problems. There is not anything you can do. You can feed her extra calcium but her shell gland just can’t process it fast enough. It won’t really help.

I really am sorry. I wish I could be more positive.