Why is my leghorn now laying wrinkled eggs

Oh man. Today is the second day Dolores has had egg shells for dessert. I did pick up some sea kelp and all the chickens are getting a sprinkle in their food. So this morning I had 3 white eggs. Dolores had less scarring or "body checking" one member called it. it was still a thinner shell than her sisters but all seemed fine and dandy. Then earlier this evening Dolores was in the kennel with the other girls... 4 others, and i noticed she was getting picked on. She hid in a corner so i put the bully away and removed Dolores after seeing some dripping coming from her back end. clear albumen looking dripping. figured she had a sloppy poop so brought her inside to gently rinse her off. when i had her back end near the water she started to squeal ever so slightly. then i saw her vent straining and i figured since she'd already had an egg that she was having another problem altogether. i had no clue what to do but hold her and hum to keep her calm. she had all her weight in my left hand and seemed unstressed. then another tiny squeak and she passed a rubber egg right into my right hand. that egg had the body checking scar... it almost looked like it was open just a bit. but it wasn't leaking.

two eggs in one day. dang. i am worried for her. did she produce a good egg yesterday thanks to the eggshell? did she pass a good egg this morning too for the same reason but then produced a second egg because of the kelp... it was mentioned that kelp is a powerful kick to help with egg production. did Dolores create an inner egg but didn't have enough for the shell?

eegads. too many questions. I asked my husband to take a photo of the egg. just the egg. zoom in on it to show the flaw. of course he got all of his lovely bride and very little of the egg but i am including the shot just to give you and idea of the size of the egg and the location of the body checking.

Dolores seems to be in good spirits. i know the others pick on her because she jumps. maybe because she's the weakest? sure hate to see her stress about it. she often jumps up onto a ladder rack just to avoid all the drama down below. that's why i figured she wasn't eating enough... i know she's getting fed when i feed her myself. i know she's getting eggshell and kelp and oatmeal.

maybe i will lay off the yogurt. maybe she is lactose intolerant.

i will be keeping an eye on her as usual. my hunch is that tomorrow she won't be laying an egg at all or will lay one late in the day.

maybe i am doing too much. maybe i should just separate the bully and relieve the stress producer. or maybe i will outfit Dolores with a pair of boxing gloves.

ugh.
 
That's a big egg. Poor thing!.

If it isn't a disease causing this, then it's likely she isn't able to process calcium correctly. If you have a hen trying to lay two eggs a day who can't utilize the calcium in her diet, that's a bit of an issue... Not one I know how to treat offhand, sorry. I hope her body starts functioning properly sooner rather than later.

To decrease the chances of her getting eggbound I would probably add more oils to her diet, personally, like cold pressed olive oil, but that's not going to do anything about the root cause of the issue, which remains an unknown. But lessening any potential threat helps. I've never yet had to treat an eggbound hen because I maintain high levels of natural oils in their diet, which I read in an old book and tested and found to hold true.

My leghorn hens that I bought as adults went from two eggs a day to one when I put kelp in their diets, so I don't think that'd do it if she wasn't raised on kelp. If they'd been raised on kelp or just kept on pellets they never would have slowed production to rebuild. I'd expect her body's been working on becoming a two-a-day layer for a while since it'd be her genetic inclination in the first place. I would guess that in her poops you may see excess calcium excretion, unless her body is utilizing it to repair something. It's also possible that she got ill or hurt and wasn't noticed because she didn't show symptoms, and the repair job her body's doing or has done took all her calcium reserves and she hasn't gotten back up to standards there. Could be so many things! Always the frustrating part, not knowing. Best wishes, hope she fixes up.
 
Good news.... for the last 3 days my Dolores has been laying smaller, normal eggs with slightly thicker shells. thanks to your suggestion i have added kelp to their food. I hand feed Dolores eggshell to make sure she's getting enough to eat. I still say she's getting bullied or is too shy to stay at the feeder long enough to fill herself so handfeeding for now. I wonder what goes one when all the girls are in the coop... my bet is Dolores is just too timid.....

but for now... 3 days in a row, smaller solid eggs. she seems happier and perkier. they all do.

i also put the vitamin powder in their water. so 3 things... kelp, electrolytes and eggshells.

thank you so much for all your suggestions and assistance. when my girls are happy i am happy.
 
Hi. Great info in this post & I will try some of the suggestions. I was wondering if your hen has had any further issues? Thanks for sharing your experience.
 
whoopsie. here;s that photo of the rubber egg.

You could just try some direct-fed supplement for that particular hen. Calcibird, for instance, has calcium borogluconate, D3, and magnesium. Try it before you make things more confusing, or jump to conclusions about viruses. Egg quality seems to be improving, and that is good news. A chicken that lays 200 eggs puts 14 times as much calcium as is contained in her body.
 
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The chicken that was having difficulties laying was found to have egg yolk peritonitis. You wouldn't know to look at her but Dolores was really quite ill. I looked into having a hysterectomy on her before this diagnosis. 2 weeks before her passing she was taking hours to lay a rubber egg. A few hours of "normal" and she'd start the stress all over again. Figured a hysterectomy was a solid step to helping her but one vet known in the area for this procedure quoted me a price of 1800 bucks give or take a hundred. I found another vet who performed an exam and surgery to find the peritonitis and put Dolores down. I learned a lot. The vet learned a lot and my bill from them was nothing... zero. That won't happen again but I thanked them for their understanding and their care. Now I keep a closer eye and have a great vet for all my animals. 4 girls left and getting 4 chicks in a week. Keeping faith that I can do only what I can do. And then add calcium. If they need it they will eat it.
 
Sorry to hear it, but good to hear some good came out of the situation. I did suspect it might be more serious but hoped not.

When you're already doing your best by them, when something goes wrong, it generally means something serious. I think sometimes I'm a bit too 'doom-and-gloom' (as some people have said or implied), because I generally try to take into account 'unhappy' possibilities as well as the general/common (and sometimes rose-tinted) ones...

But my experience with my flock has been that healthy animals very rarely have any trouble and when they do it's generally pretty serious. Some people have quite weakly flocks and trouble is the norm for them, unfortunately.

At least your flock has a keeper prepared to give them the best chance, can't ask for much more than that.

Best wishes.
 

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