Soft shelled eggs continuously

[dowellmj]

Hi, I started having this problem in my coop a couple of weeks ago. I have 3 hens so dont know who the issue is with but every couple of eggs/days there is a soft shell or no shell egg.

I checked the vents of the hens, started giving Poultry Drench and even sprinkling some of the smaller dust from the crushed oyster shells that they have free access to on top of their feed but it is still happening.

They are all alert, eating and drinking so not sure what to do?

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

Are the hens new layers? I know I have had that problem with new layers for about a month or maybe two and then it stopped and not one since. If not I'm not sure what to tell ya! And hope someone else can help ya out. Good luck!

 

[GoldenSparrow]

one of mine is laying like that. I am worried, and dont know weather its good bad, or ok????

 

[dowellmj]

good question...I fairly recently got a hen but believed she had started laying and the other are a year+

 

[Avalon1984]

Exact same problem here. Mine has been laying since last year and is just getting done molting. I thought she was egg bound but she is acting normal. She lays a soft shelled egg every day.

Wonder if it has to do with the molting.

 

[Frizzle Farmer]

I had this happen once, so I gave the girls oyster shell and it kept on happening. I change their feed to an "egg layer crumble" toke away the oyster shell and had hard shells again!

 

[CluckCluck18]

This happened to me also, from one of my RIR's, Ruby who is 9mos old. Just like everyone said, you can give oyster shell and some vitamin D....I crushed some up in the feed.
But the best suggestion I got from this site was to watch the amount of treats. Some hens have a habit of eating the treats and not getting enough feed. My girls get only good stuff like veggies, fruit, seeds, meal worms, etc, but I never thought to pay more attention to who was eating what. I cut back on the other stuff and some days give only feed and water and Voila!! Problem resolved and it only took about 3 days! Give it a try and hopefully it will work. Good luck

 

[dowellmj]

interesting...so if she was eating crumble before and I changed to pellets, that may have caused it?
wouldnt it work itself out over time though if the other hens can produce hard shells?

 

[silverback]

I have a hen,Silver, who started laying soft shell eggs. This lasted several days. From this forum I also learned that treats might be the culprit since she might be eating too many treats and not enough of her layer feed. My neighbor liked to visit the chickens and feed them bread - lots of it. I politely asked her to stop feeding them - as an experiment to determine the cause of the soft shell eggs. I then gave the hens some yogurt, refreshed their oyster shell and voila1 Sliver layed a little better egg each day for three days and then started laying perfect eggs again. May have been a coincidence but I would definitely look to see if excess treats might be the problem.
S.

 

[GoldenSparrow]

would feeding them layer feed, with extra calcium help?
I know they do sell it.

my hen lays eggs like paper every day, she is 3 years old.