Hi all hope you all have a great day today. Just a question for you all. Why do your chickens sometime lay eggs that have a soft shell. Keep Smiling Betsie
Soft / weak shelled eggs can either have not spent enough time in the shell gland to get a proper shell, or the hen can have a problem causing her to not be able to put a proper shell on them. Shell less eggs are usually eggs that just moved through the shell gland too fast to get a shell put on them, or the hen can not put a shell on them. Both can be caused by defective or immature shell glands, especially in young pullets. In both cases stress / being upset by something can make a hen lay an egg before it is ready. Soft or weak shelled eggs can be caused by lack or calcium or a problem with the hen being able to utilize calcium because of illness/disease, vitamin/mineral imbalances, etc.
This answers just about everything. Also, hens coming back from a molt can lay a soft egg, as they recover and start laying again.
I had two hens that were laying soft shell eggs a while back and did some research finding that it is mostly caused by lack of calcium. What we do now is save all of our egg shells and bake them at 350 for 5-10 min to make them brittle. Then we crush them into tiny pieces with a potato masher and add them to the chicken feed. They eat the egg shells by accident and it raises the calcium levels. We have not had a soft shell since we started doing this. Hope it helps.
