Thin shelled egg

[LoneCowboy]

I have a girl laying thin shelled eggs. Now I know what you are all thinking, put out oyster shells etc. We've done all that. She has free choice oyster shells, eats Purina Layena crumbles. Hasn't had too many treats lately and still the shells are very thin. The other girls shells are so thick I nearly need a nut cracker. Any ideas what I can do for this girl to get her laying better eggs? I'm not even sure which girl it is.

How in the heck does speckledhen know who's eggs are who's? I can't even tell my girls apart.

 

[speckledhen]

It's getting more difficult the more girls I have, but usually I can tell because I spent alot of time with them. I on occasion have a shell that is thin from someone and like you, they have all they need. It may be that one of your girls just does not eat the oyster shell she needs. We can put it out, but we can't make that lightbulb go off in their little chicken brains that tells them they need that stuff. When mine molted, the ones in heavy molt would sometimes lay thin-shelled eggs, but go back to normal once the molt was over. And yes, they did lay partway or all the way through their molts, most of them.

 

[Chellester]

Do you freerange your birds? If so, you may have one who is eating everything outside and hardly none of the oyster shells and layer you are offering.

If this is the case, you may consider locking them down for a few days and see if there is no more thin-shelled eggs. Even better if you can figure out which hen it is, isolate her and feed her only oyster shells and layena and see what happens.

 

[LoneCowboy]

Nope, don't free range right now, we have about 8" of snow on everything.

I started out with 14 girls. Really hard to keep up with them, and we don't name them so it's even harder. I have one laying this beautiful shiny brown egg with speckles. Not a clue who it is, but I'd like more of those.

 

[Chellester]

It may be just this particular hen's "egg making machine" doesn't work as well as it should.

How old are your girls? If they are still young, methinks this problem may inprove with age.

 

[LoneCowboy]

Yeah, they are still young. About 24 weeks. They are all laying now so hopefully it will improve.

 

[Chellester]

Quote:
I would bet that it will. I haven't experienced this myself, but I have heard of hens that had thin-shelled eggs when they started laying, then improve over time. It almost like some hens start laying before their egg-laying innards are completely formed, so you get thin-shelled eggs until they mature a bit more.

 

[Princessferf]

When my ladies first started laying, we had several that were "soft shelled". This lasted only a short time and now we haven't seen any of this (which is nice).