three rubbery eggs in a row, so far

[yomama]

I recently posted in emergencies and diseases about my one hen that had passed, and my Silkie hen that I thought was sick too. I never got any responses, but fortunately, my Silkie hen seems to be doing ok. My question is, the first day she was acting off, she laid a rubbery shelled egg, the kind that look like a deflated balloon. Well, she has laid one of those for 3 days in a row now. Could this be problematic? All the research I have seen says it is usually because it is a new layer, or not enough calcium. She is not a new layer, about a year old, and has always laid normal eggs up till now. All my hens have 24/7 access to oyster shell, and are on layer feed. (I have notice that I'm not going through the oyster shell as much as I used to, though, for some reason.) In the past, I would find one of these types of eggs from time to time, but not consistantly, like I am now. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[RedDrgn]

Other than the potential causes you already mentioned, the only other thing I've come across that might affect an older layer would be general health and stress levels. If she's recently been ill or acting "off", it could be related. I'd keep a close eye on her and see if there are any other symptoms of illness. Birds are masters of concealing what ails them, often until a small problems becomes a big issue.

 

[yomama]

Thanks for the reply. When I first suspected something was wrong, she was standing off by herself. I had just lost my other hen, not sure to what, so I was already keeping a sharp eye on everyone. I took my Silkie in overnight. The next morning she laid a rubbery shelled egg again, but seemed to be fine, eating and drinking and acting normal, so I put her back out. She is still acting ok. Nothing else has really changed. Wait, just had a thought. We have had ALOT of hawk attacks this year. But just the other day, one attacked my hens when I was just 30 feet away, in the same yard. I acutally had to yell and run at it to get it to fly off! The hawk didn't get anyone, and not sure which hen it was after, but I'm wondering if maybe she was the target?! Definately would be a stressful thing, and the timing seems to be about the same. If it was stress that caused this, how long could it take for her to get back to normal? Also, this might be a stupid question, but do I need to worry about any of the egg remains staying inside, or does it usually all come out, even though the shell is not hard?

 

[RedDrgn]

A hawk? Oh dang, poor chickens! Might want to keep them in an area with some overhead protection until the hawk decides that dinner isn't to be found there.

If it's stress related, then it'll take as long as it takes for her to find her normal routine and settle again - get back into the groove of daily chicken life. Could be a few days or a few weeks. It depends on if the stressor, whether it's illness or hawk attacks, is gone or not, too. If it isn't, then "normal" is going to keep moving into the distance.

If she's got soft shelled eggs, there is the potential they could break internally or during the laying process, but so long as she's defecating normally it should all end up on the outside in short order. A more serious issue is if she's an internal layer (which I don't know much about it) or if she's got very brittle hard-shelled eggs (which could break inside of her and cut her).

 

[yomama]

So far her poos have been normal, but I will keep an eye out for that.

As for the hawk protection, I had netting over head in the yard they are in( very time consuming

) but all the falling leaves, that I didn't think about, plus the possibility of snow, has proven to be a not so good idea. I've actually been in the process of running strands of wire across the yard,( also very very time consuming), so as to let the leaves and whatever else, fall through. We didn't have any hawk attacks with the netting. However, I've been letting the girls out while I'm working on the wire. I lost my favorite Silkie a couple weeks back because I foolishly let my girls out to freerange, knowing that the wire wasn't 100% in some areas. Since then, they only go out if I'm down there, until I get the wire completed. The latest hawk attack, that I think stressed this Silkie out, happened in another area where I hadn't fully completed the wire. But I thought they would be safe, considering I was only about 30 feet away. Guess not. We have a family of Red Tail hawks, and they seem to be getting more and more aggressive. Thanks again for your help!

 

[NottinghamChicks]

My LB layed two or three of those over the course of a year but she's been fine.