Tell me about your internal layers

[miss_inscan]

I lost Lucy to this in July.
She was a Red Star layer, 18 months old, from a hatchery, and my favorite!

I think it started after she had laid for about 4 months. She would look uncomfortable, sit on the nest without laying, and sometimes lay a soft shelled egg. In her last months she would sometimes lay a regular egg, but the shell color was lighter and it had a rough texture.
I was going to have a friend cull her when she got worse, but she was having some really great days. In the end she went quickly.

/Barb

 

[Bammony]

I'm gunna have to look up internal laying I guess, cause I've never even heard of it. Something else to learn about.....just when I thought I knew it all too!

 

[beakkeeper]

Hmm, all the birds mentioned here are hatchery birds; could that have anything to do with it? Maybe the genetics in hatchery birds lend themselves to hormonal abnormalities...

 

[speckledhen]

I really dont know. They are certainly bred for high egg production and every one of them was a fantastic layer. I've lost two Silver Laced Wyandottes, a Rhode Island Red, one RIR is on her way out I think, and my current one that is going downhill is my Barred Rock, Ivy.

 

[speckledhen]

Since my fourth and fifth birds are now dying from this condition, I'm bumping this thread up so it can be seen by some of our newer members. If you tell us about your internal layers, tell us where you got the birds, if they are hatchery stock.

 

[meriruka]

I'll add mine:

Red Star , 2 years old, hatchery (Rosemary)
Red Star , 2 yrs 4 months, same hatchery (Nutmeg) has same symptoms, still alive but fading fast....

Three are left from the same batch......

 

[chicken_angler]

I have 1 right now. She is a barred rock. Not sure on age.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=1213559#p1213559

I made this post yesterday if anyone wants to help me.

 

[chickenlady]

Speckledhen: You keep saying 'hormonal', do you think the way the chicken feed is made nowadays is contributing to the problem? Meaning with all the chemicals and toxins and hormones being put into foods. Also with the elimination of all animal proteins from feeds. Seems that after they decided no more animal protein and only plant/soy protein, many more instances of internal layers and people reporting skinny chickens. I feel there may be a connection, but have not figured out how to get around this. I switched to a game bird feed that still had animal protein, well, shortly after, they removed all of that,now it is all soy. I have to contact purina and find out about their game bird feed, maybe its time to switch again.

Maybe we can also hear what kind of diet the affected chicken was on whether they mainly freerange or on a regular bagged chicken feed.

 

[speckledhen]

Could very well be that. I'm inclined to think that the genetically engineered corn is a possible cause.

 

[miss_thenorth]

Upon seeing this thread pop up again, I just wanted to mention that we culled the remaining five red sexlinks that we had due to their not laying anymore. Out of the five--4 had internal masses inside them. One was really large. Only one still had yolks inside her.

I'm wondering if there is a common denominator for this too. Possibly feed, forced laying (artificial light), etc.