What happened here?

[aart]

Thank you very much! We are in Maryland. I have put out oyster shell but they don't seem to like it, it either sits for days or get spilled all over the coop. I feed them a crumble feed I get from SS and they free range for a good part of the day. I try to give them a mix of scratch and a mealworm herb/seed mix once a day for four of them to share. The eggs have been very consistant, nice hard shell and quite a few double yokes, so hopefully it was just a glitch.

What kind of crumble...brand/model?
...or look at tag sewn into bottom of bag for protein and calcium percentages.
Cut out all the scratch, herbs, and seeds for a week or two. Mealworms are good tho.

New pullets don't always 'get' eating the OS.
I sprinkle a few pieces on top of the feed and/or with a bit of scratch on the ground.
Males generally won't eat it, but won't hurt f they eat a bit.
How many males do you have?
Multiple males can cause chaos and stress, which can definitely affect laying and egg quality.

 

[fatbeamie]

What kind of crumble...brand/model?
...or look at tag sewn into bottom of bag for protein and calcium percentages.
Cut out all the scratch, herbs, and seeds for a week or two. Mealworms are good tho.

New pullets don't always 'get' eating the OS.
I sprinkle a few pieces on top of the feed and/or with a bit of scratch on the ground.
Males generally won't eat it, but won't hurt f they eat a bit.
How many males do you have?
Multiple males can cause chaos and stress, which can definitely affect laying and egg quality.

Thanks, I will cut out the treat for a bit, though it's the only way I can get them to go back into the coop when I want them to! LOL! I will try a bit of OS. I have two hens and two roos. Is it weird that some of the eggs don't have a white....just the yolk and can they still be eaten?

 

[fatbeamie]

My girls has zero interest in oyster shells too, I started using the shells from their eggs. You just grind them up and sprinkle on their feed. There was a significant change in shell thickness after I started doing that. They went from breaking while collecting to me having to hit the shell fairly hard to even get a crack. Hope this helps!

Thanks, I will give this a try!

 

[aart]

I have two hens and two roos.

All the same age?
I'd get rid of at least one of the males, if not both,
they can cause stress which can effect laying.

Is it weird that some of the eggs don't have a white....just the yolk and can they still be eaten?

In a hard shell?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

No white???? Ooh, crack one into a bowl and take a pic, this I gotta see!

 

[fatbeamie]

All the same age?
I'd get rid of at least one of the males, if not both,
they can cause stress which can effect laying.

In a hard shell?

Yep, there was two of them, both hard shells. I poached them, just turned into a hard boiled yoke...lol. I ate them and survived...Yay!!!

 

[fatbeamie]

All the same age?
I'd get rid of at least one of the males, if not both,
they can cause stress which can effect laying.

In a hard shell?

I'm not really sure about the ages of the roos, I was told all four of them were hens when I was given them (mothers day gift from my kids) and 11 weeks. However the one roo developed sooner than the other, by like two months. The younger one is just now starting to crow, but not much. I'm sure he is afraid of the older one, although as roos go the older one isn't that aggressive (yet). The younger one has just started to get rather "cocky" and tonight I think Mr. Rooster (older) broke skin and he's bleeding from the beak area. Not sure what to do about that.