Strange egg and not laying for 2 days

[DianeB]

My hen layed a premature egg on Thursday morning and hasn't layed for two days. I am not sure if one has to do with another. (I have another hen that layed really late today and a few weeks ago they were skipping days.) Other then not laying, she is absolutely normal. Same activity level, eating drinking, no swollen abdomen, regular poo, etc. She just started laying 3 months ago and has thrown a few wind eggs and skipped a few days in a row, before.

Is she just slowing down for the season? Should I be concerned? Are my hens getting ready to molt? They have been losing a few down feathers here and there for the last month and grooming themsleves more than before. I thought their first molt was not unitl the Spring of the year after they hatch.

Sorry for the long post. Has anyone experienced this before? Is this a sign of a problem?

Thank You
DB

 

[purpletree23]

Do they have access to crushed oyster shell at all times? She could have a vitamin deficiency. For this particular bird crush up 1 Tums antacid and give it to her desguised in a treat like scrambled egg. This will give her a big calcium boost. Only give her 1 and not Rolaids.

They could be going into a molt so you want to add poultry vitamins to their water and up their nutrition with chopped greens, scrambled eggs, cottage cheese and a little bit of fruit.

Make sure they have chicken grit and coyster shell and in time they will be as good as new.

 

[DianeB]

They have a grain/seed mixture and layer pellets, plus they free range. I add calcium powder and nutritional supplement to their feed. Also, they do get oyster shell and yogurt with nutritional yeast every morning and night. I put ACV and some garlic in their water and ground chillis in their feed.

DB

 

[Big C]

Are these regular layers?
Has your weather recently changed?
Have you changed basic feed?
Are they acting differently than normal?

Any of the above 3 can change laying habits. We usually experience a slight slowdown in egg production when we change nest box hay but only usually lasts for 24 hrs.

 

[DianeB]

They aren't acting differently then normal. They are pretty regular layers. Laverne does skip more days then the rest. She also had a three wind eggs and two double yolkers to their one respectively. I haven;t changed their feed, but I haven't been digging up worms for them lately. The weather has cooled down and we did get our first rain of the year today.

DB

 

[Big C]

In our flocks if we change the routine by roost time it takes a couple days to get back to normal. If there is weather change (that we are having now) we will experience lower production over the next few days.
We recently changed the feed mix (additional feeder of whole corn per flock) to correspond with the weather change so things should even out more quickly. Cost per egg cutting proceedure. Experimented with this for the last couple weeks and has worked out well.
Since the days are starting to be shorter we are decreasing our shade in the coops and increasing the light exposure since the temps are now 10-30% cooler inside the coops.
We try and regulate the coop temps to mimic our climate as "green" as possible. Green meaning that they can come in and lay in the shade in their nests. Soon we will remove the shade from the top of the coops from 53% down to 0. After Sept 22.

 

[DianeB]

So, it is probably the weather change. I was thinking it might be the reason. A few weeks ago the temps took a dip into the low to mid 80s before rebounding to the upper 90s. During that time, my two other hens were skipping days.

Thank You
DB

 

[DianeB]

She finally layed a perfect egg this morning. It has pretty thick shell and she didn't strain to lay. So, it is probably the weather.

Thank You
DB