what does this mean??

[mr darcy]

Ok folks today's novice chicken keeper question! why have scarlet's eggs got such fragile shells? sometimes they are normal, smooth and glossy, sometimes dry chalky brittle very thin and sort of crackled finely on the surface, sometimes they are soft,or ridgedI throw a handful of oyster shell down with the layers pellets in the morning and they stay in the small pen till about 10am so that she eats her layers before going for the food for free, in the evening they take themselves back to the run at 4pm because they know they get corn before my school run, generally I close the run then too, as with these dark nights they're in bed by 5.30..am I feeding wrongly, does she need something else in her diet? thanks!!

[frias]

I get this with my ex-batts but that's 'cos they've already used up their calcium store after living indoors and laying every day. I give mine limestone flour mixed into their porridge with a little cod liver oil and also baked, crushed eggshells. There should calcium in the pellets but don't know what sort you are using. My vet says they can have human calcium supplements too if needed. Perhaps with a young hen this is just a blip until she gets things right.

P.S. Where are you?

[Nicos]

Hmm...mine have been a bit like this recently- and in summer they could have cracked the dish I was trying to crack them on.
My thoughts are that I stopped giving them porridge with ground up eggshell- although they had access to shell ad lib.
Mine are back onto their porridge mix- and the shells seem to be thickening up again...sooo...I think it's lack of calcium- if it's not that then I'd like to know too!!!

[Suechooks]

Don't forget they need Vitamin D as well to utilise the calcium. With the shorter days they need cod liver oil as in summer their bodies produce vit d in response to sunlight. (We need Jennie to fully explain it but that's my basic understanding) !
So try giving her some cod liver oil - a few drops should be enough for 1 hen - 3 or 4 times a week. Older hens do lay poorer quality shells which is why commercial producers cull or rehome their birds at the end of their first laying season, as supermarkets won't buy eggs from second year hens!

[mr darcy]

she's only been laying for about three weeks so perhaps teething probs as not old bird probs....will definitely do the cod liver oil,and the ground shell, should I put the drops on her pellets, Mr D will not let me near her, the git! pardon for swearing but he is, although i love him really
geographically (for frias) i'm in gironde, sw france bout an hour east of Bordeaux... home turf is west sussex, my heart's still there on the downs (goes wistful!!)

[frias]

I wondered where you were 'cos you mentioned yours are in bed by 5.30 but mine are in by 4.30. (You can put your location on your profile page.)Bet it's warmer with a bit more sun where you are. My sis lives in Poitou Charente and it always seems to be nice there when I tell her it's raining yet again here.

[Nicos]

Never heard about cod liver oil....just the normal oil on the supermarket shelves????

and yup- location will be helpful for the future..pm me or a moderator if you have probs with that

[Suechooks]

You can mix some in with her pellets - I put a teaspoonful in my girls mash (15 of them) about 3 or 4 times a week along with crushed baked eggshells or limestone flour.
Nicos - you can use the stuff available in supermarket/chemist/health food shop or there's one in pet shops (in UK anyway) called Solvitax or NAF also do one available from horse places

[frias]

That's what I use. Supermarkets own brand. Tesco were doing buy 2 get 1 free. Not much help to you. Sorry.

[mr darcy]

That's what I use. Supermarkets own brand. Tesco were doing buy 2 get 1 free. Not much help to you. Sorry.

perhaps in Leclerc's!! (our Tesco!)

[Nicos]

Ah...worth a look eh??

[Bramble-Poultry]

Sue - you asked for it! gotta love cut n paste!

Soft eggs - main causes

Old hen, ex-battery hen, nutritional problem, toxins, parasites (internal and external), illness, management problems, shock and Coccidiosis.

Ok so here goes....

hen physiology and nutrition 101 (the condensed version - I mean condensed we did a whole year on hen anatomy and physiolgy at college and i'm doing it here in 1000 words or less!)

lets start with calcium - a very likely culprit

hens store calcium in the medullery bone, they store more than they need so by the time they are laying soft eggs calcium levels have been a problem for quite a while. A hen who eats a balanced formulated diet will NOT have a deficiency in calcium in the diet (assuming they are eating enough) - however calcium uptake and calcium deficiency are two totally differnt things! Increasing calcium in the diet is not necessarily increase the calcium in the bird.

Phosphorus is a limiting factor in calcuim uptake, ie phosphorus stops calcium being abosorbed and vica versa, however phosphorus is vital in the diet and also aids in shell formulation - calcium and phosphorus are both consituants of bone. Vitamin D is the facilitator in calcuim uptake - if vitamin D is deficient then calcium will not be taken up by the bird regardless of how much you give it. Vitamin D one of the best non meat based sources of Vitamin D is eggs!! Vitamin D deficiency can be caused by insufficient in the diet or a liver problem (its a fat soluble vitamin so is processed in the liver)

To increase the calcium uptake in a hen quickly requires a small particle size that is quickly broken down - limestone flour is the best for this, but for this to be effective you also need to increase Vitamin d in the diet (for short periods poultry can tolerate 100 times their requirements for vitamin d so toxicosis will not occur) - best way is to buy preformulated vitamin drops designed for birds - any birds the budgie one will do, its the same stuff just differnt dosage. feed this in the diet for a week, if you want to make sure she eats it make it a treat in the afternoon mixed in wth some pasta or sweetcorn or anything she will scoff down. If soft eggs are still being laid after a week then its not calcium deficiency. If eggs are starting to return to normal then continue feeding this for another week and then cease feeding the extra ration - if eggs remain normal it was a blip (it happens 1001 causes) - if they return to being soft then there is an underlying problem - this will need investigating

Toxins - the most common toxin your hen will ingest is a mycotoxin called aflatoxi, it is a produced by a mold found in corn, this is one of around 3000 mycotoxins that your bird can ingest, mycotoxins can interfere with the absorption and metabolism (use) of both calcium and Vitamin D amongst other things and this is the usual cause of deficiences when an otherwise seemingly appropriate diet is fed.

Note on above - this is for a calcuim defficient bird - an excess of calcium will KILL your bird and I do not advocate feeding limestone flour or any calcium pills to an otherwise healthy bird on a regular basis, oyster grit can be offered in a seperate pot to the feed the hen will take only what they need and the particle size means that only small amounts of calcium enter the system anyway. excessive calcium will stop the absorption of phosphorus and some otehr vital trace elements and ulimatley cause death.

Next parasites - internal and external will strain the system, internal will obviously utilise the nutritional benefits within the feed before the hen gets chance to do so - this gives you a nutritionally deficient bird!!

Management problems (not accusing you just stating causes) - insufficient or innappropriate feed is given to the hen also insufficient water, without water a hen cannot absorb many of the nutrients in the feed and they are excreted without ever entering the hens system - not going to tell you the outcome of this as you are not stupid!!!

Illness - again many illnesses can cause nutrition andphysical problems, liver problems, respiratory problesm, coccidiosis - all obvioulsy cause problems for then hen but I'm going to bypass this as you have not mentioned that she is otherwise ill.


Are you all bored now and have nodded off - lots of information to take in, but all highly likely contenders in a soft egg layer.


All of the above is only of any use if she is a soft egg layer who is then eating them because they are an easy target if she is an egg eater then it will be probably of no use what so ever. egg eating can be a deficiency in the diet, salt or vitamin d or protein are the main culprits, but it quickly turns into an unbreakable habit - then its Richmonds suggestion of doctoring an egg for her to eat

[mr darcy]

Thankyou so much for all this info! Will sort out by a process of elimination, the possible problem causes, today. Perhaps I should worm them first, and do the budgie drops for the vit D, the mould thing needs looking into because although my corn, and pellets feel dry they are keep in sealed bin which is outside and the oyster grit is damp and I've been feeding it with the morning feed....so there are a few possibilities here. Scarlet has been pecking at any soft eggs that I don't pick up (after indie died she took to laying everywhere and then sometimes pecking at it, Mr D pecks them too. They are free range over fields, garden, vines (the kitchen...) and fed twice a day, pellets morning, corn evening plus treats. Have had them since they were chicks (4 weeks) have never wormed them. Ok, will digest info and report back!!!

[Suechooks]

Thanks Jennie - I knew we could rely on you for an essay!
Pleased to say my basic understanding was ok - not bad for an old 'un!

[Eco-Chic]

Jennie, I managed to read it last night but couldn't leave a reply before Firefox through a wobbly.

Thank you very much. It was informative and easily digested. May I suggest you paste it on the Health sticky?