Soft shelled eggs?

[chickengirl778]

Thanks for your replies, everybody! I'm hoping it's just the end of the laying season and will post again if it continues!

 

[OliveGrace]

Often a hen who has suffered from Newcastle disease, or Infectious Bronchitis will develop a deformed ovary or shellglan as a complication of these diseases. When this is the reason for the soft shelled eggs, there is little that you can do to help.

Sometimes this deformity will result in egg peritonitis or internal laying because the deformed reproductive organs are unable to catch the egg yoke when it falls and the yokes build up in the hens' body cavity until infection sets in and then the old master calles her over the rainbow to frolic & play with the unicorns.

I also suspect that every egg that she lays is a soft shell egg. Another side effect of the diseases mentioned is much lower egg production. A little food coloring around the vent (different colors for every hen) can indicate which hen laid which egg. That is something for you to think about doing. If every soft shell egg has just one color on it then you have found your culprit. This is especially true if this color food coloring is missing from all the other eggs in the coop.

How do you do the food coloring thing? Do you just put a drop around their vent. If it is dried will it still color the egg? I have 6 pullets. I believe they are all laying now but today I found a soft shelled egg and one next to it that had been broken. I am assuming these were from the same hen. I put a web cam in the coop which does not work 95% of the time and when it does I can't tell with the night vision on which chicken is which!

 

[MrsWayne]

I found our first no shell egg last night, right next to a "good" egg. I only have two hens and I found one "good" egg yesterday morning. Reading the threads and articles I figure it is due to the time of year. There is oyster calcium in the coop. I gave crushed shells a few days ago. I've not changed anything in the coop. They get some "free play" time most days.

I was beginning to worry but I feel better about it now.