Soft shelled eggs and other new developments: ideas?

[NoelC]

We've had a 2 or 3 soft shelled eggs suddenly appear in the past week, plus one other oddity: our girls never sleep in their nesting box after months of training (hehe--their coop's roosting bar unfortunately is lower than their nesting box but as I say we've trained them...by using a barrier until late in the evening when we remove the barrier), but in the past week we notice at least one has started this sleeping, we think, apart from the others. There's poop in the box that we haven't seen since they were 'trained'. We can't think of any new stresses, they all look fine, and we're not sure who laid the soft eggs. Any ideas what we should think is happening? Not seeing signs of molting. Poops look normal. I don't think they received any vaccines as they came from a local breeder and I don't think she does this, but need to ask.

Also if you know, how do you tell if a hen has mites? We keep their digs quite clean and as I say they all seem ok. They are pastured hens that are in their coop & predator-proof cage at sundown.

Thanks in advance for your insights,

Noel

 

[PoultryProduce]

How old are your hens? Some hens "lay out" when they get too old and soft shelled eggs can be a sign of this.

As for suddenly sleeping in the nest boxes, I will leave that to someone else.

Look at the base/shaft of the feathers and you will see small black dots, lots of them. It is pretty obvious if you look close enough!

 

[NoelC]

One of the hens is about 14-15 months old, the other 2 less than a year. We lost one about 2 months ago from our vicious little pomeranians (hehe, they're adorable but are dogs...) and we've eliminated the source of that threat by building a much better fence. They all laid well even during the winter months here in Nor California. They seemingly have the most pleasant environment hens could possibly live in and have been a total joy for us. Hopefully this will pass but just seeing what folks know about possible causes. We will check for mites today--thanks!

 

[farmerdowling]

We sometimes get soft shelled eggs (known in our house as mutants) but I can usually track this to some shock or change in environment. Here in the UK we are experiencing a rubbish spring with sudden frosts at tht is playing havoc with the girls!