soft-shelled and shell-less eggs

[wf1992]

At the end of March our 8-week chicks moved out of our house and into the big girl coop. The big girls were understandably not thrilled at having to suddenly share their room with a bunch of younger siblings... One of my hens started laying soft-shelled eggs, occasionally a normal egg, and for the past few days a completely shell-less, membrane-less egg. Seems pretty obvious this is not coincidence, and hoped we'd just ride out the messy eggs until things settled down.

Then I came home to find one of the hens looking sick, and with a poopy bum. We gave her a bath, cleaned her up, and had her in the house in a crate for a couple days, during which time she was not very interested in eating crushed tums. She has since perked up, and I've put her back in the main coop. She's not quite as energetic as her sisters, but back to doing chicken things. They are all currently on grower feed, with oyster shells, and free-ranging during the day.

What I'd like to know is, if a hen is going to go back to normal, how long should it take? Will an extra dose of calcium take effect quickly? I'm afraid I'll end up with egg-eaters this goes on too much longer.

Will a hen go back to normal egg laying? Or will she have permanent damage?

Does any of this sound like something more than stress? If she's passing the shell-less eggs, could she still possibly be egg-bound or something?

Thank you!!

 

[azygous]

First of all, the shell-less eggs may just be coincidental to the chicks moving in, not necessarily stress related. Occasionally a hen will suffer a calcium deficiency and it requires more than a couple crushed Tums.

I like to use calcium citrate, 400mg, with vitamin D3 since it absorbs better than calcium carbonate. It may take a week or more of the therapy to get consistent hard eggs. When you see the little calcium "warts" on the shell, you know it's time to stop the calcium.

Continued soft eggs can result in egg binding. It's important to treat it immediately or permanent damage can result from infection. If a hen behaves sickly, and hasn't laid in a while, you would be correct in assuming she could be egg-bound. Calcium therapy helps with this and can prevent it if you see a hen start to have egg issues.

 

[morsekathan]

My hen has soft shells too so I'm looking for a solution. However, her eggs also have calcium warts when they have a shell. Mostly the eggs break as they come out and the little bits of shell stick to her fluffy butt. The other girls pick the bits off! How do you give the calcium citrate? I'm sure she could benefit. I've pretty much tried everything else - oyster shells, cheese, yogurt, a different feed (which helped a bit).

 

[azygous]

My hen has soft shells too so I'm looking for a solution. However, her eggs also have calcium warts when they have a shell. Mostly the eggs break as they come out and the little bits of shell stick to her fluffy butt. The other girls pick the bits off! How do you give the calcium citrate? I'm sure she could benefit. I've pretty much tried everything else - oyster shells, cheese, yogurt, a different feed (which helped a bit).

If your hen is an older layer, say over five, she may just be suffering from aging. The fact that her shells have calcium "warts" along with occasional sort eggs, signifies she is experiencing fluctuating calcium levels. It may be justified to try her on a very limited program of calcium citrate, but be prepared to stop when you see the soft eggs stop and the warts on the shells become more pronounced.

I just use the same calcium you find for women in the vitamin aisle. I crush the tablet and fold it into a favorite treat such as peanut butter.

You might want to consider fermenting your feed especially if you have older chickens. It frees up more nutrients than dry feed has. This has most certainly prolonged the laying life of my layers who are laying regularly at six and seven years. One nine-year old is still trying, but even calcium citrate won't help her aging body to produce an egg with a hard shell.

 

[morsekathan]

Thanks. I'll try the crushed calcium. I think I have some even. She's a barred rock and just turned 4, She still lays 4 or 5 eggs a week (when she feels like it).

She did molt in November or December (why chickens molt in the winter, I don't understand); after the molt, when she finally started laying again, her eggs were fine. It's just in the past couple of weeks that she's been laying them sunny-side up. I watched her lay one yesterday. Very weird. The egg cracks as it comes out.

It's interesting about the feed. I used to just use any old feed that I felt like buying that month (they don't really eat much feed as they free range all day). One day, I tried a quite expensive organic feed just to see what it was like and it made a huge difference in her eggs, so I've kept getting that. But lately, even the expensive feed hasn't helped.

Hopefully the calcium will help. It's getting to gooey in the nest box! And she needs a bath almost daily. Fortunately she like them and it's not too cold here.

 

[morsekathan]

Just to follow up here, I tried the calcium citrate, 400mg, with vitamin D3 crushed up and put in raisins (she doesn't like peanut butter) and it seems to have done the trick. Her eggs have shells now - not that hard, but at least they are there. I stopped the treatment for a week or so, but I'm starting again as the shells are getting thinner. I suspect she'll need calcium supplements for the rest of her life. Any other suggestions for giving the tablets. It's kind of a pain to cut them up and stick in raisins

 

[azygous]

You could smash the tablets with a hammer and sprinkle the powder over raw grated carrots. That's what I do with the one hen out of twenty that hates peanut butter.

Keep giving the calcium until the eggs just begin to start getting those calcium "warts", then stop.