shell less egg

[ShaggysGirl]

Our oldest girls started laying 2 weeks ago, 9 girls 22 weeks old we are getting two and once three a day, they skip a day a week so far. The shells all seemed to be very hard. They get Kent Multi flock and have a pail full of oyster shell.
Well today along with a tiny first egg from one there was in the nest box next to it our first shell less egg

At 1st I thought it was another broken egg but there was no shell at all and like a white rubbery part under it. One hen who must of laid that shell less egg has some yolk on her butt. I put a hand full os oyster shell next to her on the roost hoping she'll figure out to eat that to help her eggs.
Any tips?
Can this be just because she is a new layer or is it for sure a calcium deficiency?
Also I know when they start laying the eggs are smaller... how long till they are the chickens full size eggs?

 

[newchicksnducks]

I've had 5 soft shell/partial no shell eggs in the past week from my flock of 15, 6 of which I know have begun to lay. Mine have been dropped from the roost onto the droppings board underneath it. They also have free choice to oyster shell, eating Purina Layena. Hope they get the hang of this soon:/ Just wanted you to know your not alone!

 

[ShaggysGirl]

Quote:
Thanks, Hopefully they grow out of it soon.

 

[feathersnuggles]

Yep, it can be normal for beginning layers to start out with good eggs, then move to a weird egg phase, then back to the good eggs. My earliest layer (the hen in my flock who started at the earliest age) had the longest and weirdest egg phase, after about 2 weeks of good eggs. She laid strange shaped, wrinkled, tiny thin-shelled eggs, and she laid gooey shell-less and partially shelled eggs from the roost at night. After about a week or so of the weird stuff, she went back to laying nice eggs in the nest, like nothing had ever happened.

If you have your flock on high quality feed, plus free choice oyster shell, and clean water - then you just need to wait until their egg laying mechanism gets the details straightened out.

ETA: forgot to say something on your 2nd question... Give it about a month or two for the full sized eggs. Again, my earliest layer (she laid at 19 weeks) took the longest amt of time to get full sized eggs. She took over 1 month of laying those small eggs to begin laying larger eggs. The other layers in the flock (started at 24-25 weeks and 28 weeks old) only took about 1-2 weeks, at most, to get from small to big eggs. And my black australorp started laying nice sized eggs from day one. But she's the over-achiever.

 

[ShaggysGirl]

Quote:
Thanks for the info. I can't wait for them to get their mechanism strait