Thin damaged egg shells and egg eating

[AlannaB]

I am relatively new to chicken keeping and have got a bit of a conundrum! I have a 13 month old wyandotte bantam who is having allot of trouble in egg production. She has never been good at laying, she lays between 1 to 4 eggs a week though they are never 'normal' or consistent. She can lay wonky, ribbed, giant, fractured, thin-shelled, no-shelled eggs. She has also been egg bound in the past.
More recently she seems to be lacking that natural hormonal urge to seek out a dark quiet place to lay. In fact it is as though she isn't even aware she is about to lay; just momentarily squats during her daily routine, lays and then off she goes again. She never goes near the laying quarters and always seems to lay her weak deformed eggs on the pen floor or at night while she is on the roosting bars leaving a splattery mess.
(This has now resulted in my other hens discovering the weak / broken eggs and eating them before I can retrieve them ... oh dear...egg eating... another problem I need to resolve!)

...could it be Infectious bronchitis or egg drop syndrome??

She eats a mix of layer pellets, corn, grains, millet and hemp seed as well as daily access to greens, grit and oyster shell (which she gobbles up like there's no tomorrow). She generally seems healthy in her self, but she is very dumpy and has got unexplained feather loss around her vent and between legs (no signs of irritation at all).

I wondered if anyone has any experience or advice on this some of problem. I am very confused and she is such a pretty girl, I don't really want to have to cull her.


Alanna B

 

[azygous]

I'm so sorry to have to deliver this bad news, but practically everyone will advise you to cull her, if you have the courage. She is destined for egg-laying problems, if they haven't already begun, such as internal laying.

I have a four-year old EE who is such a hen. She is currently in the final stages of illness. I'm a coward about euthanizing my chickens, though I eventually get up the courage. She needs it. It would be far better for you both, before you get as attached to your hen as I am to mine, to get it out of the way before she has to suffer.

As for the egg-eating, try not to worry too much about that. The opportunistic eating of a broken or deformed egg is a far cry from pecking open a recently laid intact egg in a nest. Mine eat the broken ones that they happen to find on the poop board, yet they've never attacked one in the nest box. I can't promise they will never make the connection to these trashed eggs and begin eating nest box eggs, but it appears at this point, after years of this, unlikely.

 

[AlannaB]

Thank you for your advice and words of wisdom, azygous. It wasn't an easy decision to make but we had our little banty put down this morning.

 

[roostersandhens]

Thank you for your advice and words of wisdom, azygous. It wasn't an easy decision to make but we had our little banty put down this morning.

So sorry for your loss. Just for the future, I wouldn't have suggested culling her. To me it sounded like she needed more calcium, which you can order chicken calcium injections online. I could be wrong.Forme killing an animal comes when the animal is both suffering, and there is no way they are going to live anyway..

 

[AlannaB]

Thank you roosterandhens. It certainly wasn't the outcome I had hoped for either, but I took her to an avian vets for a check and she was diagnosed with ascites and internal laying. She was becoming less mobile and I couldn't afford the vet treatment or the thought of her being in prolonged discomfort.

 

[Farmer Viola]

Thank you roosterandhens. It certainly wasn't the outcome I had hoped for either, but I took her to an avian vets for a check and she was diagnosed with ascites and internal laying. She was becoming less mobile and I couldn't afford the vet treatment or the thought of her being in prolonged discomfort.

Sorry to hear it, but you did make the right decision for her.

Keep an eye out for egg eating now that she's gone, most likely they are just going after the already broken eggs I think, but if they start opening the eggs themselves then you will have a real issue.