She finally did it!

[ronott1]

Nothing. One of our buffs looked a little big in the rear, but made no attempts to relax and lay. We'll see in the morning, maybe she laid the light shell a couple days ago. Sandy has definitely been upset about the lack of treats, I'm hoping that her body is now tsking the time to turn the calcium into some shell and that's what held her back for a couple days.
Ryn.

She should lay a nice egg with a shell soon. Hopefully next time. Then you can blow it out and save it

 

[SavKel&RynKel]

She should lay a nice egg with a shell soon. Hopefully next time. Then you can blow it out and save it

After four days we finally found an egg! No idea who dropped it, but this time it was in the coop next to the two fake ones.

And yes that is shavings, we just ordered some pads to put in the boxes, as Sandy was only laying in the yard we weren't sure exactly when to get some.
Ryn.

 

[ronott1]

After four days we finally found an egg! No idea who dropped it, but this time it was in the coop next to the two fake ones.
View attachment 1471948
And yes that is shavings, we just ordered some pads to put in the boxes, as Sandy was only laying in the yard we weren't sure exactly when to get some.
Ryn.

It is from a brown egg layer and looks great!

Now for the rest of them to get their egg laying up to snuff!

 

[SavKel&RynKel]

It is from a brown egg layer and looks great!

Haha, our three oldest are 2 buffs and a production red. Hoping it was the red (who laid the shell-less) but one of the buffs has shown all the signs as well.

Now for the rest of them to get their egg laying up to snuff!

Ryn.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

I had some soft shells from older layers - this heat can be stressing them. So, I can't imagine how a new layer handles it. But, I supplemented with oyster shell, crushed egg shells, and manna pro omega egg maker. It has extra vitamins and calcium in it. You can also crush up some calcium citrate for them.
They need vitamin d to help with calcium absorption and the feed supplement contains that, plus other vitamins and minerals that help chickens.

 

[SavKel&RynKel]

Alright, so I've been stewing on this one for a few days, haven't had the chance to read much on it yet, hopjbg to do some surfing this week. Is there any reason we went 4 days without eggs after five days of soft eggs? Just seems weird that the treats stopped and then so did the eggs... Maybe just a coincidence, but curious either way.

Ryn.

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

Alright, so I've been stewing on this one for a few days, haven't had the chance to read much on it yet, hopjbg to do some surfing this week. Is there any reason we went 4 days without eggs after five days of soft eggs? Just seems weird that the treats stopped and then so did the eggs... Maybe just a coincidence, but curious either way.

Ryn.

New layers are inconsistent.

 

[ronott1]

Alright, so I've been stewing on this one for a few days, haven't had the chance to read much on it yet, hopjbg to do some surfing this week. Is there any reason we went 4 days without eggs after five days of soft eggs? Just seems weird that the treats stopped and then so did the eggs... Maybe just a coincidence, but curious either way.

Ryn.

It takes time for all of their egg laying systems to fire up!

Also, It has been very hot here and the removal of treats is a factor too.

It is normal for this to happen

 

[SavKel&RynKel]

New layers are inconsistent.

Ain't that the truth! I figured that was like, some days would be missed, or like day three where we got twins...four days off just seemed weird, but i don't have any experiences to compare it to.

It takes time for all of their egg laying systems to fire up!

Also, It has been very hot here and the removal of treats is a factor too.

It is normal for this to happen

the heat has been awful, i completely agree. We replaced our back door with a screen, that's keeping the coop temp in the 90s during the day... They pretty much live under our back porch though, and of course they dustbathe with my freshly filled sprinkler holes. But i thought it was hot early last week too, and Sandy had an egg each day, so good to know that the treats can do that. I figured the heavy shift in diet (we've been giving them all our summer fruit scraps) must have thrown their "egg processing" system through a loop.

Thank you both! Sav and I have been discussing theories, but your first hand experience is much appreciated!

 

[SavKel&RynKel]

So in a weird turn of events... We went on a trip for 10 days and came back and had a few eggs in the fridge that our chicken sitter found in the coop. I went out this morning to feed them some bird seed since they've been without treats for like 3 weeks now I think. And I couldn't find Sandy. I told Ryn about it and he went to go check her favorite hiding spot and we see this...

Folks... She has been hiding her eggs under the deck since we've been gone.

We counted 13 brown. And 1 random white one.

We broke a few in the recovery process. But it worked! We finally have shells on our eggs! Also, the deck has been closed off to them because we literally can't get to that spot except from the top. But yay! We did float test them and threw away any that had cracks so we ended up with 8 brown and 1 white. Success!