soft/no shelled eggs

[Envy371]

Hi I have a speckley hen roughly 2.5 years of age. She has layed almost daily for a good year but just recently this has all changed. The hen that is top of the hierarchy has just come into lay after not laying for the winter and kept bullying the speckley out of the nest, this has resulted in the speckley laying eggs with no shell or sometimes we find the membrane hanging out her bum! Her laying is all over the place and will now lay at night from the perch, almost as though its accidental. This has resulted in the other chickens eating whats left of the egg in the morning! Im really worried about her as she wants to lay sometimes during the day but when she does go up to the nest she doesnt. The top hen doesnt always bully her out now. Do you think I should take her to the vet?

 

[faykokoWV]

have you changed your feed lately? Sounds like it could be a nutritional deficiency. Do you offer oystershell free choice? Also, have you tried adding another nesting box?

 

[juliette2009]

I, too, would like to know the answer!

 

[Envy371]

Hi
Thank you for getting back to me. We changed food a few months back from pellets to mash which we noticed they will only eat if we add water to it (we changed it to try it out), we are now going to change them back to pellets as we think they prefer that better. They have access to grit and oyster shell all day every day as we have it in a bowl. Other than the egg laying she seems quite happy in herself.

 

[Envy371]

We do have two nesting boxes for the three chickens we have, we did originally just have the one so we put another one in when the problems started but it hasnt really made no difference.

 

[faykokoWV]

For some reason they all seem to want to use the same nesting box most of the time. Do you have a space to isolate the aggressor? This is just a thought, but I wonder if you take her out of the pecking order for a bit it might help see if that is the problem or if its something else

 

[Envy371]

It would be hard to isolate her but not impossible just means rearranging the pen but they would still eb able to se eachother!! How long should we isolate her for?