Sheri460
Chirping
- Mar 11, 2021
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I posted a few days ago about my 2 year old hen that's been laying super thin shelled and sometimes discolored eggs lately. The original write up is below. I am attaching pics of today's egg and the contents. I'm assuming she has a parasite, but I can't see anything live moving around... but if someone can tell me it's something different, that would be great. Agnes is acting normal again, just FYI. I'm going to see if I can get some valbazen today, if not, I have Safe-guard goat dewormer that I used last year and will start that again tomorrow on my flock if I can't find the valbazen. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Original post a few days ago:
I have a 2 year old hen, Agnes, (was supposed to be black australorp but is not, black with copper around neck) that has been laying super thin shelled eggs for about 6 months. Some days they are almost paper thin. The other 4 hens have not had issues with thin shells. They have oyster shells, limestone and crushed eggs shells available in their run at all times. I feed them fermented high quality feed in the mornings and they have access to a high quality (Scratch & Peck Feeds) pellet in a feeder the rest of the day. Today, Agnes was still on the roost in the coop when I went out at 8am. So I opened the access door from the back and she was standing on the roost alert, but her tail was down. Finally she jumped down and came out and raised her tail up. But she was walking very slow and it seemed like her butt was hanging lower than normal. I was concerned she was egg bound at first, but she did lay an egg yesterday late morning, but it did have a paper thin shell. She walked around slowly for a minute and then let out a large watery poop full of water yurates. There were a couple small blobs of greenish poo in it, but 90% watery clear with white watery urates in it. So something is obviously going on. I've wondered for awhile why her egg shells have been so thin, but she has had no other symptoms of anything. But now I'm wondering if she could have a worm or parasite that is leeching the calcium from her and now it's becoming an issue.
I've tried to search around to see bug, illness, worm, parasite... could be causing the thin shells and start there... but I'm not having much luck.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you in advance.
Original post a few days ago:
I have a 2 year old hen, Agnes, (was supposed to be black australorp but is not, black with copper around neck) that has been laying super thin shelled eggs for about 6 months. Some days they are almost paper thin. The other 4 hens have not had issues with thin shells. They have oyster shells, limestone and crushed eggs shells available in their run at all times. I feed them fermented high quality feed in the mornings and they have access to a high quality (Scratch & Peck Feeds) pellet in a feeder the rest of the day. Today, Agnes was still on the roost in the coop when I went out at 8am. So I opened the access door from the back and she was standing on the roost alert, but her tail was down. Finally she jumped down and came out and raised her tail up. But she was walking very slow and it seemed like her butt was hanging lower than normal. I was concerned she was egg bound at first, but she did lay an egg yesterday late morning, but it did have a paper thin shell. She walked around slowly for a minute and then let out a large watery poop full of water yurates. There were a couple small blobs of greenish poo in it, but 90% watery clear with white watery urates in it. So something is obviously going on. I've wondered for awhile why her egg shells have been so thin, but she has had no other symptoms of anything. But now I'm wondering if she could have a worm or parasite that is leeching the calcium from her and now it's becoming an issue.
I've tried to search around to see bug, illness, worm, parasite... could be causing the thin shells and start there... but I'm not having much luck.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Thank you in advance.