Soft shell eggs

[MarlaMac]

I have a flock of 14 hens, one rooster, one 7.5 week cockerel and six 24 day old pullets (). All are black australorps, except the 6 24 day old pullets. They are blue australorps.

We have been finding soft shell, shell-less and rubber eggs for a few months, but I have never been able to track down the culprit (assuming there is only one). Today I was handed a gift. One of our chickens was on the grass being really still. I watched and after a few moments, I realized she dropped a rubber egg and was kind of frozen for a moment.

I immediately called my husband out of the house and we corralled her back to the run was able to catch her and tag her and gave her 600mg calcium citrate w/ vit D3.

I recently read an article by @azygous where she talked about treating one of her hens for 3 weeks to a month with daily calcium citrate. She stated in the article that this jump-started her hen's normal reproductive processes. (Please know I am paraphrasing). Knowing that this extra calcium can prove hard on internal organs, I feel it is only time before the practice of laying shell-less or rubber eggs becomes a worse problem, so the risk of the effects of the calcium seems like the lesser of 2 evils.

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

 

[Eggcessive]

I would try the human calcium with D for 7 days. Do they get a layer feed and have access to crushed oyster shell daily?

 

[MarlaMac]

I would try the human calcium with D for 7 days. Do they get a layer feed and have access to crushed oyster shell daily?

I fee Kalmbach non-gmo 20% flockmaker b/c of rooster and babies that I have occasionally. They do have free access to flaked oyster shells (my girls were not eating the crushed version - had to get the expensive stuff). I do see the hens partake in that on a regular basis. Now that this one is marked, I can monitor her taking of the oyster shells.

I will start with 7 days and see what happens. Hopefully it will do something.