Egg

[BA-quail]

Hello
I have four hens (pharaoh coturnix) who I believe are all laying regularly now. I've noticed dramatic differences in egg colouration and texture - the ones with an almost solid brown covering are a bit rougher and less shiny that the speckled eggs. I have been assuming this is just normal variation among the hens (in colour and amount of bloom etc), but curious if there's any potential of a problem represented here....

There are also sometimes what appears to be hairline cracks in the eggs. Could this be happening before/during lay, or would it only be damaged after? I collect daily.

They are on commercial feed (layer crumb/gamebird grower), have access to grit and I feed back the shells as well.

 

[Nabiki]

Are you giving them calcium? You can give them egg shells or oyster shells on the side and they will eat as much as they need.

 

[FrostRanger]

I'd provide oyster shell as just feeding eggshells back isn't going to replace what they've lost

 

[Nabiki]

I'd provide oyster shell as just feeding eggshells back isn't going to replace what they've lost

You can often get free eggshells from breakfast places. Just ask them for the empty eggshells. Just feeding back what they've laid isn't going to do it, but eggshells are easy to come by.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Are they young birds? We’ve had a few in the past few weeks as our young hens come into lay and get the kinks out of their system. Those weird brown sort of soft shell/not quite hard ones are super easy to crack. I put a few eggs into the incubator to fertility check my boys and candled them on day 3, should have candled them first, one looked like a mosaic it was so riddled with cracks though nothing was grossly visible. We’re seeing fewer and fewer double yolks, fairy eggs, even an oblong egg or two, and true soft shells as time goes by. We’ve found several of these semi soft shells already broken in the pen of they’d break just but being handled. They are on a decent layer feed and the incidence is decreasing significantly so hopefully just young birds and weird eggs!

 

[BA-quail]

Are they young birds? We’ve had a few in the past few weeks as our young hens come into lay and get the kinks out of their system. Those weird brown sort of soft shell/not quite hard ones are super easy to crack. I put a few eggs into the incubator to fertility check my boys and candled them on day 3, should have candled them first, one looked like a mosaic it was so riddled with cracks though nothing was grossly visible. We’re seeing fewer and fewer double yolks, fairy eggs, even an oblong egg or two, and true soft shells as time goes by. We’ve found several of these semi soft shells already broken in the pen of they’d break just but being handled. They are on a decent layer feed and the incidence is decreasing significantly so hopefully just young birds and weird eggs!

Yes they are still fairly young (hatched February). I only had one fully soft egg over a month ago. These brown don't seem particularly soft, but I use quail scissors to cut them open and haven't noticed a difference to the others, but I'll look a bit closer at that! Candling is a good idea too. Thanks.

 

[BA-quail]

I'd provide oyster shell as just feeding eggshells back isn't going to replace what they've lost

Yes I am providing oyster shell (in addition to their own own shells).

Sorry when I said "grit" in my first post I meant the oyster shell. Its ground to pretty small pieces and labeled as "digestible grit". Could providing a source of larger particle size make a difference?

 

[Nabiki]

Yes I am providing oyster shell (in addition to their own own shells).

Sorry when I said "grit" in my first post I meant the oyster shell. Its ground to pretty small pieces and labeled as "digestible grit". Could providing a source of larger particle size make a difference?

Do you have the label? Grit and calcium are two different things.