Yolk in Next Box

[KYMomma]

We're new to chickens, so we don't know how to deal with all the situations I'm sure you're all used to.

We have 2 Black Star hens that have faithfully given us 2 eggs a day since we got them (almost 3 weeks ago). For the last couple of days, we've only been getting one get, but both of the girls have seemed fine.

Tonight my husband went to put them up for the night and collect the eggs, and again only one egg. But there's yellow (yolk we assume) all over the nesting box. He said he didn't see any shell anywhere. Is that something we need to be concerned about? Do we need to watch for certain signs to see which hen it was, and then follow up somehow?

Thanks for your help!

 

[ssteiner]

I saw this happen when my first eggs came and I can see one of two possibilities.

The first, and more likely, is that she gave you an egg with no shell which sometimes just happens.

The second, and seemingly less likely, is that someone at it. But since you found no shell I should think the first explanation is more plausible.

Are they both behaving normally? Do they both get a little crushed oyster shell for calcium?

 

[KYMomma]

They both seem to be acting perfectly fine.

We haven't been giving them any oyster shells (as I said, we're new to this!

), but there hasn't been a problem yet. Both of these hens are over a year old, but we've only had them for a few weeks.

Could shell be stuck inside her, or is it more likely that there just wasn't a shell?

Actually, now that I think about it, one of them looked a little strange a couple days ago. Instead of her backend being all covered over by her feathers, you could see her vent. Then when I checked again in a few minutes, things looked fine. I wonder if that could've been her having trouble with an egg? They lay huge ones!

 

[cmom]

You could have an egg eater. I saw one of my birds devior a shell. Down the hatch. I had taken the golf balls out of the nest boxes and all of the sudden there were eggs everywhere. I found some on the floor of the coop and under the roost and broken in the nests, that is when I saw two birds arguing over an egg shell. I think when the egg went out of the nest the birds pecked at the shell and decided yum yum. I put the golf balls back in the nest boxes and now everything is back to normal.

 

[KYMomma]

I don't know what our little incident was all about. Today, things were back to normal, with two normal eggs. (One was a lot lighter than normal - don't know what that's all about.) Everyone still looks and acts fine!

 

[Kim_NC]

I would definitely provide oyster shell for them....free choice. Even though layer feeds have calcium added, hens will usually consume additional calcium if it's available to them.

We just keep a pile of oyster shell in the the same place for them to scratch through anytime they want. Somehow in their little pea brains they know when they need it.

You can also feed their egg shells back to them. I prefer to rinse them out and heat them in the oven for 10-15 min to kill bacteria. We crush them and put them in their oyster shell area.

 

[miron28]

i have a buff orpington that did this a couple of time and she finally got the egg and shell thing down and now she lays double yokes