Soft eggs and Diarrhea

[Jessica Kurrle]

hello all - I am new to Chicken raising and hope someone can help. We have 3 Rhode Island Red hybrids. They have a great life and get to free range quite a bit. We feed them commercial feed and treats of scratch, cabbage 1x per week, fruit, and some - but very few - table scraps. We have had a very cold snap here lately but the gorls have a heater in their roost. Recently we have been getting these weird soft eggs. Some will be broken in the coop or roost and some you find in the laying box. Normally we get 3-4 eggs per day from 3 girls but the days I find the soft ones, we get only two. In addition, one of the girls seems to have had a poop explosion all over her bum and it is sort of frozen on there. The other two look fine and her behavior remains unchanged. They all lay in the same 2 boxes so while I can’t prove that the two are related (diarrhea and soft eggs) I suspect that they are. They get plenty of light, the other eggs shells are not thin and they all eat the same thing. Has anybody ever seen this? Any ideas/suggestions? Might it be an illness?

 

[farm_girl726]

Girl, thank you for posting this! I've had some really strange egg shells over the last few weeks, 3 in total and I don't know who is laying it! We've also had a super cold snap here and they have a heater in their coop too! The one I thought was a popped water balloon, it was almost like plastic. I panicked wondering how it got in their house. Can't wait to see if anyone else has had this happen.

 

[Minichick123]

Be sure you are feeding them a high quality layer feed and providing lots of fresh water at all times and a calcium supplement like crushed limestone or oyster shell. If you dont want to buy it, save the shells from their eggs, crush them, and feed them back to them. I mix oyster shell into their feed and also provide it in a separate dish on its own. It's super important because those sodt eggs can cause big problems if the don't come out.

 

[farm_girl726]

Be sure you are feeding them a high quality layer feed and providing lots of fresh water at all times and a calcium supplement like crushed limestone or oyster shell. If you dont want to buy it, save the shells from their eggs, crush them, and feed them back to them. I mix oyster shell into their feed and also provide it in a separate dish on its own. It's super important because those sodt eggs can cause big problems if the don't come out.

Any idea if this is why my Silkie laid 2 eggs and hasn't laid again? It's been weeks since she's laid....

(Sorry Jessica for getting in on your feed)

 

[Minichick123]

Any idea if this is why my Silkie laid 2 eggs and hasn't laid again? It's been weeks since she's laid....

(Sorry Jessica for getting in on your feed)

Impossible to say. Could just be winter if you arent providing extra light. If they don't have heat, light, and lots of great food and calcium through the winter they will completely stop laying until the days get longer

 

[Jessica Kurrle]

Be sure you are feeding them a high quality layer feed and providing lots of fresh water at all times and a calcium supplement like crushed limestone or oyster shell. If you dont want to buy it, save the shells from their eggs, crush them, and feed them back to them. I mix oyster shell into their feed and also provide it in a separate dish on its own. It's super important because those sodt eggs can cause big problems if the don't come out.

Thank you - yes we also feed oyster shells. I would wonder about the calcium if it were all three. But the fact that we are still getting 2 good eggs leads me to believe it is something else.

 

[Minichick123]

Impossible to say. Could just be winter if you arent providing extra light. If they don't have heat, light, and lots of great food and calcium through the winter they will completely stop laying until the days get longer

Thank you - yes we also feed oyster shells. I would wonder about the calcium if it were all three. But the fact that we are still getting 2 good eggs leads me to believe it is something else.

How old is the hen?

 

[Minichick123]

Also, in my experience, i found that you must remember that they are all individual. What works for one may not work for another.
If you'r worried she could be ill, trying a spa treatment (epsom salts bath and blow dry and some general TLC) can do wonders. If she's got a problem egg or stool blockage it can help to relieve those issues. Also try offering her a crushed tums tablem or some yogurt for a quick calcium boost and a dose of olive oil to get things moving.

 

[Jessica Kurrle]

Also, in my experience, i found that you must remember that they are all individual. What works for one may not work for another.
If you'r worried she could be ill, trying a spa treatment (epsom salts bath and blow dry and some general TLC) can do wonders. If she's got a problem egg or stool blockage it can help to relieve those issues. Also try offering her a crushed tums tablem or some yogurt for a quick calcium boost and a dose of olive oil to get things moving.

Thank you! It could be that she is different some how. I’ll try the calcium and bath and see how it goes. Today we did get 3 regular eggs.

 

[Jessica Kurrle]

This is what one of them looked like.