[Feeb]

Hey guys, we have a chicken laying soft shelled eggs... i think its pheonix the welsummer - the guy at the breeding place said she was just about ready to lay... we have found one but its been very soft, like an egg and instead of a shell a bit of flimsy plasticy stuff without much shell at all

Now we have given the whole place a good ole clean today, we have also cancelled ANY snacks (they were only getting mixed corn in the evenings anyway) and we have cleared any bits of grass or anything out of the run

is there anything else i can do? 

also pheonix seems to be loosing a bit of feathers at the top of her head, not sure why that is but could be bullying... we are going to extend the run in the next couple of weeks so they will have loads more room, am excited about that

is there anything more i can do for them?

Thanks poultry forum, you rock! xx

[poultrygeist]

Hi Feeb.

When the hens eat, any calcium is shared between their bones and eggshells. If there's not enough calcium in their food, the shells can start to thin and their bones can suffer too.
It's recommended that you give them poultry grit which gives them the grit they need for grinding up their food and some oyster shell for calcium. You can also offer extra calcium with limestone flour or certain other additives.
That said, when they start laying, they can lay the odd soft egg while their hormones, etc get settled down.

Obviously, the layers pellets will give them most of their requirements. Grass in the run is a good thing to give them variety with their greens. The corn in the evenign is not a problem normally as long as it's just a small amount each.

Rob

[Feeb]

Hiya they didnt really get on with pellets because they are used to mash which i have been feeding them instead

i give them oyster shells every day, do they need grit too? 

i think there was too much grass in the run, it was quite overgrown in there so i think its good we got rid of most of it, we are giving them parsley now and again which is great for cacium but i started seeing alot of those yolk-y coloured eggs that mean calcium and was worried they were getting too much

do you think this is a sign we should continue the parsley?  i give it to them because it is very rich in calcium and they like the leafy-ness

hopefully shes just settling in to lay properly

thanks for the advice xx

[lucylou]

hi feeb! my bantam laid a couple of  soft shell eggs just before she started to lay properly - they were laid while she was roosting and had split open when they landed in the coop!

[nzdunn]

thats wot happened to me, when cassie started to lay, her first egg was under the perch on the floor, very  soft, the following day she laid nothing, then she laid an egg, again on the floor under the perch, it was whole but very soft, then the next day a beautiful egg in the nest and shes continued ever since.   nicky

[poppies]

Hi agree with the others' we have had this happen loads of times, make sure you remove it as soon as possible as it can sometimes encourage them to start eating their eggs if it breaks

[Feeb]

Oh how exciting to think that Pheonix has started laying very excited by that

thanks for the support guys, its nice just to know that people are around and have experienced the same things...