weird deflated eggs...

[fatguyaz]

the last three days, i've been getting these strange deflated looking eggs. The shells are soft and leathery and they are broken and smooshed. It's coming from a barred rock or a RIR, if that matters... They aren't in the boxes with the intact eggs, either. It's only in the early morning that it happens. It's as if the hen gets up in the morning and just dumps the egg out before she gets over to her box. Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[eggzettera]

Off the top off my head you have calcium deficiency going on I have this page bookmarked for help on egg quality...... http://www.thepoultrysite.com/ourbooks/1/egg-quality-handbook/ hope it helps.....

and.......

 

[Colored Egg Farmer]

How old are these hens? And what is there diet?

 

[VaM715]

I had the same problem and tracked to two of my older hens. They would drop the egg as they either went to roost or came off the roost. They were at least 5 when this was going on. I got rid of them as I could see an egg eating potential problem with the flock as they would drop down and gobble the egg up.

 

[fatguyaz]

these are pullets not even a year old yet. It's always from the roost shelf they sleep on, like VaM715 said. They freerange several hours a day and get a mixture of layer crumbles, flax seeds and DE in a big gravity feeder when they are in the coop. The others have the same exact diet and i'm getting normal eggs from them. It's one a day, so i'm assuming it's the same hen each morning.

 

[patandchickens]

I'd offer them oystershell or dried crumbled eggshells, free choice, always available in a separate little bin. That may solve your problem right there.

they can drop an egg 'prematurely' if frightened or stressed... is it possible that one of them is getting harassed by another(s) and chased off the roost and plopping out an egg then? Unlikely, but not impossible and if that were it then obviously the solution woudl be a bit different.

Good luck,

Pat

 

[fatguyaz]

they have a bowl of oystershell and i feed all their egg shells back to them, as well. I'm picking up smooshy eggs as soona s i see them because i'm worried they might start getting a taste for the raw eggs.

 

[Attack Chicken]

Sounds like softshell/shell-less

 

[ams3651]

i was getting those off and on from my EE when she started laying, adding oyster shell helped. I still see one on occasion but rarely. And its the same as you mentioned, on the floor below the roost like she couldnt hold it in.

 

[fatguyaz]

upon further investigation, i found my EE with a really wet sticky belly... as if she'd be setting on this broken deflated egg. Still up on the perching shelf, not in the laying box. Also, i looked closer at the shell and it's definitely not brown. I have 4 layers and i'm still getting 3 brown eggs in a day on occasion, but no green ones anymore. (for about the last week.) So it must be the EE. She stopped laying a couple days before these weird eggs started coming. Why would it be just one hen? Maybe she doesn't like oystershell as much as the rest? She does the same thing, diet wise, that the other girls do... strange.