Soft-shelled Eggs and Laying More Than One Egg a Day

[webweaver]

I've got six young Red Sex-Link hens that we bought as pullets about a month ago. They started laying about a week or so after we brought them home and have been laying beautiful eggs, with a double-yolker thrown in every once and a while. I also have two Cornish Chickens, that we were given as chicks. The Sex-Link Chickens are about seven months old and the Cornish Chickens are about eight months old.

First thing this morning I went out to the coop to let them out and found a very soft-shelled egg - I mean completely flexible - right inside the door. I also went to the nest about lunch-time and gathered six beautiful brown eggs. This afternoon, I was out in the back yard with the girls and I noticed one of them just standing on a small mound of dirt, with her feathers all puffed up and her head pulled down into her shoulders, staring straight ahead. So I'm kind of looking where she's looking, trying to figure out if she is seeing something that alarms her, when all of a sudden an egg tumbles out of her rear and down the mound of dirt! And unfortunately, the other chickens see it and come running. One of them pecks it and then that one and another one want to eat it! I shooed them away, cleaned it up, and got them back into their pen with some treats to distract them. I'm hoping I'm not going to have an egg-eating problem after this - I've seen no signs of it before now. I think the first chicken pecked the egg because she saw it moving, and that's just what they do when they are curious.

So is this normal for this breed, to lay more than one egg a day? They get regular laying mash, and oyster shell. The other eggs I gathered have perfectly hard shells. They also get out into the yard once I get home from work, and as much as I can watch them on the weekends.

I also found a much lighter egg in the nest yesterday - not exactly white, but very light brown with white speckles and longer and more pointed than the others. It was there with six brown eggs. I've found eggs like this in the chicken yard in the last week, not every day. Yesterday was the first time I've found one in the nest. I've put them down to at least one of the Cornish Chickens. (The nest is still resting on the floor of the coop, until I was sure that all the girls knew where to lay. I'll be moving it up this week, and probably putting a nest below, just in case the Cornish girls are really laying these.).

I'm sorry for the long first post. I'm concerned for my hen - is this healthy for her? Do I need to supplement her feed with anything else?

 

[chickenbottom]

well sexlinks are spicificly egg layers so its not uncommon but the soft shell eggs all i can say is you said you gave em oyster shells so maybe it will get better soon

 

[rainbowgardens]

Last fall, when my hens were new to laying, I found several of those shell-less eggs. One day I found three under the same spot on the roost when I let them out. they were in various stages of being formed.
I guess something caused them to be expelled before they were completed.

 

[susiestozz]

Hi rainbowgardens - these soft-shelled eggs are perfectly normal and occur when they start laying for the first time. They will need plenty of oyster-shell grit in their diet to help these shells firm up.

Some people dry out used eggs shells in the oven they grind them down and give them back to the birds which works the same way. They need this grittiness to form the hard exterior of the egg.