Poultry Spice

[SteevK]

Hi all
One of my girls is not laying yet and produces the odd paper egg from time to time. She seems happy and healthy enough and I’m guessing she just might be a bit of a late developer. The others have been laying for the past few weeks now. Anyway, I thought I’d get some poultry spice to try and help her along the way. The instructions say add one tea spoon to feed, per day, per 10 birds (I have 4). What’s the best way to do this? I want to make up a ‘batch’ so I can just top up their feeders, but how can I work out the amount to use? Can you over spice them?
Many thanks

[Scarlet]

Do you use oyster shell? Chickens need calcium to help form the egg shell. You can add it to their food or scatter on the ground.

How old is she? It's unusual for a young bird to produce sever soft eggs. Usually a sign that an older chicken is in the end of her laying life.

If you want to work out the feed, try working on 150g of layers a day per bird. This is obviously just a guide, depends on breed and how much they free range etc but it's a good starting point.

[SteevK]

I got 4 of them (different breeds) and they would be about 22 weeks ish by now. I scatter oyster shell on the ground but I haven't noticed anyof them eating it. As I said, the others have been laying for a few weeks now. Gladys is in good health and doesn't seem stressed, if not a little flighty as the Sussex Star's can be

[Scarlet]

Oh, sorry - I have a bad habit of scanning things quickly and not reading things properly! Young hens often lay soft eggs, wind eggs or double yolkers during their first few weeks of laying, their systems get a little confused at the beginning. Softies aren't so good but the double yolkers my kids fight over! Good luck!

[SteevK]

I know what you mean about the double yolkers. I've some of them from the other girls. They've been laying eggs from pigeon size to ostrich!! but they have settled down a bit now. By the way, what's a wind egg? - oh, and thanks for the info on the food ammounts

[Scarlet]

Wind eggs are very small eggs that don't have a yolk.

[MrsDaffy]

By paper egg do you mean one with a soft shell? I've just started a thread as my Light Sussex, who has been laying for a couple of weeks, has just started laying soft shelled eggs late in the evening. Other two hens are laying with no problems. A couple of other people have experienced the same problem, both with the same breed.

[SteevK]

yes, sort of. They are like small empty paper bags. **Update** Since my first post the girls have been on poultry spice and I only get the very occasional paper egg now. She is still not laying every day like the other girls, but it has increased to about 3 -4 eggs a week now.

[MrsDaffy]

I'd not heard of poultry spice before but will check it out. Thanks