Thin shelled egg laid from roost nearly every night

[Yummy face]

I always find these thin, pale and broken egg shells on the floor of the coop in the morning under the roosts, they are most likely laid during the night and smashed on the floor, they are then eaten in the morning because there are egg yolks on some of my chickens faces. They could all be coming from my Australorp chicken because I find them under her roost. On the days which I find the broken egg shell(almost everyday) she always goes to the nesting box and sits there for a while and does nothing, almost as if she didnt know she laid an egg during the night. When she does lay during the day, the eggs are weak, pale and thin shelled. I know calcium isn't the problem because the rest of my chickens lay normally. The urates part of her poop sometimes has pink splotches in it, possibly blood. She doesn't look sick in anyway. This started about a month ago and is getting worse and worse. Can someone help?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I always find these thin, pale and broken egg shells on the floor of the coop in the morning under the roosts, they are most likely laid during the night and smashed on the floor, they are then eaten in the morning because there are egg yolks on some of my chickens faces. They could all be coming from my Australorp chicken because I find them under her roost. On the days which I find the broken egg shell(almost everyday) she always goes to the nesting box and sits there for a while and does nothing, almost as if she didnt know she laid an egg during the night. When she does lay during the day, the eggs are weak, pale and thin shelled. I know calcium isn't the problem because the rest of my chickens lay normally. The urates part of her poop sometimes has pink splotches in it, possibly blood. She doesn't look sick in anyway. This started about a month ago and is getting worse and worse. Can someone help?

Can you post some photos of your hen and her poop?
How old is she?

Thin shelled eggs can be caused by a number of things - internal and/or external parasites, stress, nutritional deficiencies, disturbances/stress, shell gland disorder and disease are a few common causes.

While your other hens may be laying normally and are fine with what you are feeding/providing, she may not be absorbing nutrients like she should.

I would check her for lice/mites, consider getting a fecal float to check for worms. I would also give her a boost of vitamins by direct dosing her with something like Poultry Cell for 2-3 days. Extra calcium for 2-3 days wouldn't hurt either (you can overdose calcium so I would only give for the 2-3 days) you can give 1/2 Caltrate with D3 once a day.

You mention this started a month ago - think if anything changed a month ago - new feed/change in feed, have you added new birds or taking any out, etc.

Also observe flock interactions - does she interact like normal - anyone picking at her, keeping her out of the nesting boxes during the day, etc.

Look forward to the photos.

 

[micstrachan]

I have a one-year-old hen with the exact same issue. For a while, I could treat her with calcium for a few days about every month and that would take care of it. However, I think I overdosed her, as Wyorp Rock suggested can happen. I stopped it with the calcium, because I was concerned I might be frying her organs. I do think stress, illness or nutritional deficiency could be an issue. In my travels to try to help her, I discovered that manganese deficiency can cause brittle shelled eggs. I could not find any dosing information for it, however there are some foods that are rich in it. Zucchini is one of them. Yesterday I shredded just a little bit of zucchini, and today she laid a hard shelled egg. Probably just a coincidence, but interesting. Would you consider giving her a shredded zucchini treat for a couple days and see what happens? Probably wouldn’t hurt anything.

 

[Essentiallyokanaganmom]

My cochin was doing the same thing, we found out (quite by accident and only after the fact) that another chicken was bullying her but only when we were not watching. Once the bully got injured and didnt survive the cochin stopped laying "roost eggs" that were thin or shellless and now are fine. So stress i think for sure can be an issue if youve ruled out other things.

 

[Yummy face]

Can you post some photos of your hen and her poop?
How old is she?

Thin shelled eggs can be caused by a number of things - internal and/or external parasites, stress, nutritional deficiencies, disturbances/stress, shell gland disorder and disease are a few common causes.

While your other hens may be laying normally and are fine with what you are feeding/providing, she may not be absorbing nutrients like she should.

I would check her for lice/mites, consider getting a fecal float to check for worms. I would also give her a boost of vitamins by direct dosing her with something like Poultry Cell for 2-3 days. Extra calcium for 2-3 days wouldn't hurt either (you can overdose calcium so I would only give for the 2-3 days) you can give 1/2 Caltrate with D3 once a day.

You mention this started a month ago - think if anything changed a month ago - new feed/change in feed, have you added new birds or taking any out, etc.

Also observe flock interactions - does she interact like normal - anyone picking at her, keeping her out of the nesting boxes during the day, etc.

Look forward to the photos.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks for replying, she is 4 years old and I checked her for lice and mites, she does have lice eggs on her feathers but I don't see any lice. I will treat her with DE. I do remember seeing worms in her cecal poop, but I didn't find any worms in her normal poop yet. She probably has cecal worms, I will try to get my hands on a suitable wormer. Nothing changed from a month ago. As far as I can tell, no one is picking on her and is going about her day normally.

On a side note(this may be unrelated), wild birds love to visit and poop over my yard even though there is no food left in the open. Every morning when I let my chickens out, they all look for bird poop to eat, I can't stop them and I'm scared they might pick up a disease. What makes them love bird poop so much?

 

[micstrachan]

Is that your little girl? She is soooo cute! I do think I see a nick in her upper eyelid, like perhaps it was injured by pecking or scratching?

 

[Yummy face]

Is that your little girl? She is soooo cute! I do think I see a nick in her upper eyelid, like perhaps it was injured by pecking or scratching?

That mark was always there I believe