[Ched]

I am fairly new to poultry keeping and have recently acquired some point of lay hens. One of them has been laying a shell-less egg every day for the past two weeks.
There is plenty of grit available in the hen house plus the chickens spend half of every day rampaging around our huge garden. The other hens are beginning to lay perfectly normal well-formed beautiful brown eggs.
I have no idea which of the ten hens is laying the shell-less eggs - they are always laid by the time I open up in the morning.
Please, can anyone help me with some advice :?:
 Ched, Hertfordshire.

[Bodger]

You could try oyster for them, but from what you've said about them having free range, you really have done alright by them.
 It might be that you have a malfunctioning chicken. Get the oyster shell and the bird might eventualy start laying eggs like her friends, it might even sort itself out without this addition. If you do this and it doesn't come right, then theres very little you can do.

[Fenland Girl]

Like Bodger says, it may just resolve itself. One of our POL hens did the same thing back in the summer, never found out which hen it was and after a few days it never happened again   I understand this is fairly common when thay are just beginning to lay.

[Aunt Sally]

Bodger is quite right (he's got LOADS of chooks so knows what he's on about)

The hen in question might just not have got quite on line with her egg laying by 2 weeks is quite a time.

Does any of the hens act any differently - do any have a dirty bum.  

As Bodger said get some crushed oyster shell (from your feed supplier) and I'd add some to their feed, and place some around the garden so it's available to them all day.  Add some cod liver oil to their feed too, just a small amount for a week to see if this makes any difference.

Do let us know how things go  :!:

Welcome to the forum by the way  

[Bodger]

I was going to say throw your snails at them, but I can't remember seeing our chickens eat them. Our ducks use to wolf them down. One of our small fields backs onto some gardens and the gardeners were literally queing up for our ducks to waddle past so that they could showere them with the snails. A good source of calcium.

[Aunt Sally]

I was going to say throw your snails at them, but I can't remember seeing our chickens eat them.  A good source of calcium.

It took quite a while before one of my hens discovered how to eat snails,  the other two never have  :roll:

[muntjac]

as bodger old chap suggests .and anty ... oestra .not forgetting the grit