soft shelled eggs

[JackieAt]

We have 4 chooks all have been laying for a couple of months. The last few days one of them has been laying soft shelled eggs when they go to bed at night - normally within half an hour of going in the coup

Any clues? they are all healthy get plenty of grit and shell, get free range of the garden. we think we know which chook it is and she has been laying perfect eggs until now

[janeyo]

Funny you should say that as one of mine has been doing the same thing. I put it down to her still being young as there is plenty of grit / oyster available. I have heard they can do this if they get a fright, but not sure if this is true. I have also heard they can get taken by surprise for the urge to lay when they are young so do it when the eggs not ready and drop it in the worong place!

Hope someone can help you more

janeyo

[mtoyne]

Hiya, one of mine has just started doing the same. Shes an ex bat tho so shes about 1 1/2. Ive got them some oyster grit incase she isnt getting enough calcium but other than that ive got no idea.

[MaureenHall]

I've got 6 ex-batts and had them almost 2 months. Mine are still laying soft shell/no shell eggs, well at least 2 of them are! I've identified 1 of the culprits as I saw her pass an empty soft shell in the garden. I've done everything that's been suggested, worming, de-lousing, extra red mite protection, extra grit available, crushed egg shells in a porridge made out of the layers pellets (which they absolutely adore!). Poultry spice is given 3 or 4 times a week, and Life Guard tonic or garlic is added to their drinking water. There's always a cabbage or some extra greens hanging up for them to peck at. They have full free range of the garden from 6.30 - 7ish in the morning to the time they put themselves to bed (at the moment around 8.30pm). I've decided to just carry on keeping them happy and well fed and hope the problem will sort itself out in time. They're certainly looking better, more like "proper" chooks and not like something that's just about oven-ready

[JackieAt]

good on you for geeting ex batts, we missed out when we were ready and ended up hatching our own - loads of fun and they are definatley alot more friendly having been hand reared. Good luck with them

[Eyren]

One of my bantams has suddenly started laying soft-shelled eggs after over a year of normal ones, and they have access to a mix of oyster grit and crushed eggshells, so I'm not sure what's going on there.

Might be stress in my girl's case - about three weeks ago the council cut back the trees that were overshadowing our garden, which meant a lot of noise from chainsaws and shredders, then I relocated two of my birds and the problem layer has adopted the "top hen" rank in the pecking order. If things don't improve soon I will have to resort to limestone flour, but I don't want to boost their calcium intake too much as the others are still laying nice thick-shelled eggs.

[bendm]

Soft shells

Some Hens will always lay soft shells from time to time.IMHO it is not worth bothering feeding crushed shells etc.A good quality layers pellet or mash contains all the calcium they need to make good shells and is much easier.The hens do much better on it as well.

[JackieAt]

thanks all, we seem to be back to normal now, 4 pefect eggs this morning.
I am wondering if she had a scare last weekend, it was really windy and cold and we had several hails storms that might have freaked her out.

[sunflower]

I had some strange advice from an 'experienced' henkeeper last week. He asked me what grit I was giving my hens. I replied Oyster shell. He then said that oyster shell was no longer suitable for hens because it has too much calcium, and will have the opposite desired effect on the egg shells. Rather I should be using mixed chicken grit. So I stopped putting down the oyster shell in the run......guess what? I've had 2 soft shelled eggs! Has anyone else heard this about oyster shell?

[TPeers]

No, and as long as it is on demand supply I don't quite see the argument - the hens only take what they want.

I have oyster shell grit and flint grit which I mix in equal quantities and put in a hopper for the girls - they take more flint than oyster shell most weeks but sometimes they go mad and clean out the hopper in two days.

[Morff]

Hi,
Most definitely not heard this! I've recently been in contact with Barbara at Omlet as we had a prolonged period of soft shelled eggs from one of our girls and the advice is still to supplement with grit (amongst other things) if this is a problem.

We've had our girls for a year now and unfortunately soft shelled eggs can be a side effect of lots of things as well as just a blip. Also, it can take quite some time for the hen to get back in to the swing of things: if your hen is behaving normally and seems happy and otherwise healthy just keep providing the feed and the supplements, especially if you've wormed etc. Fortunately, sick hens are obvious even to the untrained eye: they just shut down. Sometimes if you've covered all your bases patience and TLC are the way to go. Of course, anyone still concerned should take their hen to the vet for a check over.

Regards,
Cath

[JennyO]

We have 4 chickens, and at least one of them has been laying shell-less or soft-shelled eggs very regularly since last summer!! We have tried literally everything - including trying to induce an artificial moult by locking her up in the dark for 14 hours/night (the vet's idea). Recently things came to a head when the eggs started being eaten, and eggs with not very hard shells were being broken into to be eaten. They've always had free access to oyster shell, but don't appear to eat it at all. At the pet shop the other day I noticed that you can buy very ground up oyster shell for caged birds, so I bought some of that, made up some porridge and mixed the ground oyster shell in it. I'm not sure what sort of quantities to give it in, but today for the first time in ages we had 3 very good, hard-shelled eggs, and none eaten. I have put two ping-pong balls in the nest as well - not sure what difference they'll make... I really hope that perhaps the ground up oyster shell will be the key to the problem.