I'm hopefully worried about nothing, but I want to be sure.
So this morning on my droppings board there was a soft shell, looks kind of like wet paper with a tail, see picture. On another part of the board there was also evidence of a slightly yellowish liquid that was dried. These things would have happened between my 9pm and 9am visits to the coop. It looks like this is coming from one of my full sized brown egg layers, of which I have 6. After reading up on here, I just went out again and checked all 6 BEL (brown egg layers) vent area, everything is clean. No evidence of swelling of the vent. Everyone's abdomen to pelvic area feels about normal, the buff orps feel a little more soft than the others, but both buffs feel the same. Everyone is acting normal, eating normal, going after a bit of scratch as normal, drinking normal, etc. And I have 5 brown eggs from today, which is also normal.
So what I'm wondering is what to look for next. Obviously I will keep an eye on everyone's behavior and look for more evidence of abnormal droppings. But I'm wondering what to look for and what this could be so I am ahead of the game. I'm thinking a soft egg broke internally, so possibly look for signs of egg yolk peritonitis. So far nobody is symptomatic.
Some more history:
2 BEL have been laying since October, 1 since December, 3 since January
All hens will be 1 in May/June
1 double yolk egg previously
No soft shells before, quite the opposite - thick strong shells
Occasionally I will see some slightly deformed eggs in the larger eggs, kind of like a band around it
Organic soy free layer ration with free choice oyster shell
I'm hoping if anyone is going to show symptoms they do it soon as I am going out of town for a week starting on Thursday, and my house sitter will take care of the birds, but she isn't a chicken expert.
Image is after I scraped it off of droppings board, it wasn't quite so dirty when I 1st saw it.
So this morning on my droppings board there was a soft shell, looks kind of like wet paper with a tail, see picture. On another part of the board there was also evidence of a slightly yellowish liquid that was dried. These things would have happened between my 9pm and 9am visits to the coop. It looks like this is coming from one of my full sized brown egg layers, of which I have 6. After reading up on here, I just went out again and checked all 6 BEL (brown egg layers) vent area, everything is clean. No evidence of swelling of the vent. Everyone's abdomen to pelvic area feels about normal, the buff orps feel a little more soft than the others, but both buffs feel the same. Everyone is acting normal, eating normal, going after a bit of scratch as normal, drinking normal, etc. And I have 5 brown eggs from today, which is also normal.
So what I'm wondering is what to look for next. Obviously I will keep an eye on everyone's behavior and look for more evidence of abnormal droppings. But I'm wondering what to look for and what this could be so I am ahead of the game. I'm thinking a soft egg broke internally, so possibly look for signs of egg yolk peritonitis. So far nobody is symptomatic.
Some more history:
2 BEL have been laying since October, 1 since December, 3 since January
All hens will be 1 in May/June
1 double yolk egg previously
No soft shells before, quite the opposite - thick strong shells
Occasionally I will see some slightly deformed eggs in the larger eggs, kind of like a band around it
Organic soy free layer ration with free choice oyster shell
I'm hoping if anyone is going to show symptoms they do it soon as I am going out of town for a week starting on Thursday, and my house sitter will take care of the birds, but she isn't a chicken expert.
Image is after I scraped it off of droppings board, it wasn't quite so dirty when I 1st saw it.
