Soft Shelled Egg Questions

[wherry]

I was checking in on this thread because one of my hens has been laying soft/no shell eggs off and on and wanted to check to see if there was anything else I should do other than layer pellets (with calcium) and oyster shell. Decided just to share some winter experience - had a few "no shell" eggs over this past winter after the hens started laying again (they took a break between December and January as I don't add light). The weather was so cold I did not realize at first that they were no shell since the entire egg was frozen solid. It seems that the fall molt and winter darkness combined with extreme cold appeared to tax this poor hen's system. I didn't consider it a problem but did keep an eye on the issue to make sure it didn't continue. Never did find out who it was but suspect it might have been a silver laced wyandotte.

 

[lorilynla]

I'm a new chicken owner- this is the second day my New Hampshire red laid this kind of egg. It's like it has a soft spot, the rest is pretty hard. She's almost a year old, and this is the first time I've seen anything like this. Normal? Not normal? Help! Thank you ~

 

[Bren7000]

Hi...I am glad you posted this because I found part of this rubber looking thing in my nesting box...although your's seems to look more like an egg than mine did, but I could'nt imagine what it was??!!

 

[Donnah23]

me too first egg, beutiful in the nest, the next two days after giving them oyster shells, found two softies in were they poop purch. We did cull to r.i.r. cockels yestuerday. to bossey. was not sapposs to get that many cocklels? telling the hens what to do, were to go. pluss i know we have two more roos, and maybe a third?

 

[mamm7215]

Dealing with soft shell issues here too. Thank you everyone who posted here, because now I'm not so worried! Seems I could be dealing with a combination of issues.... 1) the ladies are young, only 5 months and have just started to lay. 2) it has gotten really hot here, into the 90's. 3) Just changed their feed to a layer pellet and they still hate it, so they are free ranging mostly. And last but not least 4) have new younger birds who stay in the run during the day but everyone roosts together at night. ( yes the older girls can still get at the nesting boxes! ) So far this week 4 soft shells out of three laying hens, and 7 good hard normal eggs! Pretty sure most of the softies are coming from the girl who started laying just this last week!

 

[newandjustafew]

Question about the shell-less eggs....is it possible for them to have one without shell & without intact membrane? Like it just came outta her (yolk as a whole) then the white too! NEVER a bit of shell and everything's been super normal since. Except she's not laying at all (but we have 104+ temps here)

 

[ByrdWc3]

Isn't it funny how they lay the soft shelled eggs outside the nest box?


Or is it just my chicken?  She's layed five soft shelled eggs in her (month long) egg laying career, and every time it's outside the box.  All her hard shelled eggs have been inside the box.


It's like she knows in advance whether it's a good egg, or a bad egg. /img/smilies/tongue.png

I've noticed the same thing, maybe it's some of my girls first times but the weak paper thin small eggs have been found under the roosting area and not in the box. All the other ladies. Have figured out the box after the first (or initially)!

 

[kimschicks26]

I'm new to chickens as well and read about soft shelled eggs but didn't "find" any till yesterday. My hens are 18 weeks old and a handful of them have been laying for two weeks. Until yesterday all were nice hard small eggs ( and very delicious I might add

) these lasts two one was under the roost but the other was in the next box. I'm guessing it may be other hens starting to lay as well, still getting my one to two hard eggs along with this soft ones... they are very weird feeling for sure. I appreciate all the information in the previous posts, confirms what I had read and that I am doing the right things for them