I have several Buff Rock hens. All get laying mash, grit and some extra oyster shell grit during laying season, enhanced by garden gleanings and bugs from their outside pen which has a hay base.
One of them has terrible problems with her egg laying. She lays eggs with very thin shells, then no eggs for several days, then terribly lumpy deformed eggs. She's also taken to eating her eggs that break and I'm afraid she's become an egg-eating addict.
All the other hens are fine, wonderful eggs, no problems.
At first, I thought she might be eating the eggs in an instinctive attempt to balance something she was missing, but no other hens have this problem. I isolated her with one roo who would also eat some of the egg... and now I notice HE's starting to get in the nest box and root around -- looking for egg to eat, I think! I've never, ever had a rooster get into a nest box. Good grief, should I just get rid of them both???
One of them has terrible problems with her egg laying. She lays eggs with very thin shells, then no eggs for several days, then terribly lumpy deformed eggs. She's also taken to eating her eggs that break and I'm afraid she's become an egg-eating addict.
All the other hens are fine, wonderful eggs, no problems.
At first, I thought she might be eating the eggs in an instinctive attempt to balance something she was missing, but no other hens have this problem. I isolated her with one roo who would also eat some of the egg... and now I notice HE's starting to get in the nest box and root around -- looking for egg to eat, I think! I've never, ever had a rooster get into a nest box. Good grief, should I just get rid of them both???
