soft- shelled egg?

[tattooedchickenlady]

Hey y'all,
I'm new here!
Today I went to collect afternoon eggs and I had a large soft shelled egg.....It was pretty disconcerting to pick up this thing that is squishy instead of hard!
What would cause this? Is it because one of my girls laid it too soon? Or could it be a stress/diet issue. They have calcium available and are on laying feed........HELP!!!
thanks!

 

[bills]

It seems to happen on the rare occasion, even when all the conditions are correct. I think the hen passes it prematurely. I have had one or two from the dozens of otherwise pefect eggs. The same hen will lay a normal egg the next day.

If it happens frequently, you may want to rethink your calcium source for the birds. Perhaps they need a different means of including it in their diet. I have occasionaly mixed crushed dried egg shells in with some softened whole oats, fo example, or perhaps if your using oyster shell, you could crush it up smaller so it's easier for them to swallow. (I have seen some oyster shell that looks far to course.)

I wouldn't get to worked up yet.

 

[tattooedchickenlady]

Thanks!
I haven't collected eggs yet today, so I'll see what happens.
We are using Oyster shells, and yeah, they look too coarse....
We actually fed the egg to one of our dogs, and it was a normal egg inside.
I'll keep my eyes open.