Hens laying eggs without shells at night

[Txfarm2009]

About two months ago I moved my hens to a new coop. They seem to like the new nest boxes, and they quickly learned to roost on the new roost bars. However, several times a week in the morning I find broken eggs in the poop on the poop board that have just the membrane and no shell. This did not happen before the move. At least two hens are doing this because I have found two eggs on a couple of occasions. Their feed is the same, same container, same location; water is the same. I have started putting out oyster shell, but no results yet. I have seven hens: four Barred Rock and three Buff Orpingtons. I suspect it is the Barred Rocks that are doing this. They will all be two years old in July. This started shortly after the move and seems to be getting more frequent. Any ideas as to what could be causing this? My supply of eggs is being affected.

 

[azygous]

What type of feed are you feeding?
How much of what they eat is not commercial feed? (bread, fruit, veggies, scratch grains)
How old are the hens?
How long have they been laying?

You are not going to see immediate results with oyster shell. It can takes days to be fully absorbed and end up in the shell gland, and often much longer. When eggs lack a shell, they feel more like poop to the hen, so she's less likely to have the urge to seek out a nest. When you know that a particular hen is laying shell-less or thin shell eggs, this is the type of calcium that works best in a crisis of this sort.

Give one tablet, whole, directly in the beak. The hen will have no trouble swallowing. Give one each day until eggs have a nice shell. Then you should provide oyster shell free choice as the calcium source, even if layer feed is being provided.

 

[Txfarm2009]

What type of feed are you feeding?
How much of what they eat is not commercial feed? (bread, fruit, veggies, scratch grains)
How old are the hens?
How long have they been laying?

You are not going to see immediate results with oyster shell. It can takes days to be fully absorbed and end up in the shell gland, and often much longer. When eggs lack a shell, they feel more like poop to the hen, so she's less likely to have the urge to seek out a nest. When you know that a particular hen is laying shell-less or thin shell eggs, this is the type of calcium that works best in a crisis of this sort. View attachment 3126296Give one tablet, whole, directly in the beak. The hen will have no trouble swallowing. Give one each day until eggs have a nice shell. Then you should provide oyster shell free choice as the calcium source, even if layer feed is being provided.

Thank you for your informative response. I happen to have this very supplement on hand.
Answers to your questions: I feed my girls ADM PenPal Egg Maker. They get to roam the back yard and garden when I am outside, digging and scratching happily. They have a flock block which they like ALOT. I suspect they eat too much of it so I have started limiting when they have it this week, since it is not a balanced diet. Occasionally I give them vegetable scraps and scratch grains but not regularly, My girls will be two years old in July. They started laying just about when I expected and have been good layers until this started happening. BTW, there was another shell-less egg on the poop board this morning.

 

[azygous]

Yes, try to limit the other treats and stick to the commercial feed as much as possible. My flock loves flock blocks, also, but I stopped giving it when all the blocks I was getting were much too soft, and the chickens were gorging themselves at the expense of their feed.

Can you identify the hen that is producing the membranes? If you can't figure out which one it is, treat those you think it could be. It won't hurt in the short term and this condition left untreated can lead to something much worse.

 

[Txfarm2009]

Yes, try to limit the other treats and stick to the commercial feed as much as possible. My flock loves flock blocks, also, but I stopped giving it when all the blocks I was getting were much too soft, and the chickens were gorging themselves at the expense of their feed.

Can you identify the hen that is producing the membranes? If you can't figure out which one it is, treat those you think it could be. It won't hurt in the short term and this condition left untreated can lead to something much worse.

Thank you again. I think the hens doing this are one of the Barred Rocks, guessing from where they are roosting - who is above a splatted egg in the poop. I think I will try the calcium tablets in the morning while they are still on the roost and I can catch them easily. I am in Texas; it has been very warm so they are spreading out at night.

What "much worse" thing could happen if this is left untreated?

 

[azygous]

Egg binding is what could happen if one of these soft eggs gets stuck. That can lead to prolapse and chronic infection. For these reasons, I keep a bottle of calcium citrate handy in my run so I can start treating a hen that pops out one of these aberrations without any time wasted.

 

[Txfarm2009]

Egg binding is what could happen if one of these soft eggs gets stuck. That can lead to prolapse and chronic infection. For these reasons, I keep a bottle of calcium citrate handy in my run so I can start treating a hen that pops out one of these aberrations without any time wasted.

OK. How do you get a hen to open her beak so you can stick a calcium tablet in? I had no luck. My husband suggested some peanut butter which they love. They ate the pb off and left the tablet, although later I found no tablets laying around. I tried it again this morning. My top chicken, who is not one of the suspects for shell-less eggs, would grab one and swallow the whole thing. When I gave a tablet to one of my suspects, she would put it down and top chicken would grab it. There were no tablets left on the ground this morning. I am going to have to get smarter, and quicker, than my chickens.

 

[azygous]

And more assertive. You can't expect a chicken to willingly open their beak as you gently place a pill inside. I can hear my chickens all laughing their tail feathers off at this very notion.

You need to force the beak open either by pulling down on the wattles, and when a chicken lacks wattles as in EEs, grab their jaw and place a finger in the crack to force the beak to open. Then place the pill inside and close the beak to enable the pill to slide down into the crop.

 

[Txfarm2009]

And more assertive. You can't expect a chicken to willingly open their beak as you gently place a pill inside. I can hear my chickens all laughing their tail feathers off at this very notion.

You need to force the beak open either by pulling down on the wattles, and when a chicken lacks wattles as in EEs, grab their jaw and place a finger in the crack to force the beak to open. Then place the pill inside and close the beak to enable the pill to slide down into the crop.

Thank you again. That worked. Much better than peanut butter. I had more control over who got the calcium. Now I need to do this every day until no more splatted eggs in the poop. Right? Any guess roughly on how long that might take?

 

[azygous]

The length of calcium treatment depends on her individual case. Some respond overnight. Others can take up to three weeks.

This will elevate her blood calcium and prevent all sorts of serious complications, including sudden death syndrome and egg binding.

After eggs are again produced with quality shells, you may then stop the special calcium and return to providing oyster shell free choice.