[BillJames]

Hello Everyone, poultry keeper on and off for 30 years. Latest flock of four have been laying since Easter 2011. One of the girls has been either laying a soft one in the nest box or slipping a similar offering under the perch pretty well every day for the past five weeks.

This is a new one for me, I feed on demand layers pellets, shell and grit mix, mixed corn in the afternoon and nice hen friendly leftovers with poultry spice every morning.

Anyone got a suggestion as to what is occurring here?

regards

Bill

[kegs]

Welcome.  If you've kept chickens for over 30 years then there's no way I should offer advice as I've only kept them for a year! 

I've got 2 flocks, one of unvaccinated Faverolles and one of vaccinated hybrids.  My hybrids are the ones that quite often lay soft shelled eggs and I'm still trying to figure out why.  It could be that the hybrid missed out on one of the vaccinations or she just cannot retain the calcium she needs.  I do tend to give them all cod liver oil every so often which seems to help and the one who lays soft shells I mix the cod liver oil with extra oyster shell.  I think years ago cod liver oil used to be known as 'liquid sunshine' and as we haven't had a fat lot of sunshine recently I do wonder whether this could be another factor causing soft shells.  Lastly there was a thread on another forum discussing brands of layers pellets and how it was felt that some brands increased the number of soft shells they were getting.

Sorry, no help at all, just a lot of throwaway thoughts!  Let us know if you manage to find a solution.   

   

[BillJames]

Thanks for that, this is a relatively recent development and the birds have been in lay for over 12 months but I think I will have a go at cod liver oil. It is the pre dawn dropping whilst still on the perch that is a puzzle, never seen that before; bit of "ovic diarrhoea"

Bill