4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[Medwriter]

Just wondered whether anyone has any experience with hormone treatments to prevent egg production?

 

I have had Holly (Gingernut Ranger from Omlet) for just over 2 years. She has generally been healthy - she is a BIG chicken - but has always been a bit erratic in egg laying and prone to producing softies, despite supplementing eith Davinova-C, limestone powder etc.

 

Over the weekend she was poorly - hunched posture, spending a lot of time in the Eglu. When I examined her yesterday I found broken bits of soft shell stuck in her vent. I removed them and cleaned her back end in a basin of warm water. She was still a bit 'floppy' looking for the rest of the day, but today is looking a bit brighter - scratching in the garden when I looked out a few minutes ago. This is the second time I have had to remove soft shell in this way (the last time was about 15 months ago), and I am wondering whether it would be better to stop her laying and just keep her as a companion for Ivy, who lays reliably and never causes any problems - apart from a houdini-like tendency!

[Christian]

Hello Medwriter.

 

No idea about hormone treatments for chickens, best to speak to a vet.

 

I have had a couple of chickens that laid softies and were then ill with peritonitis. I found the best thing to do was feed them anything but layers pellets/mash. Porridge oats, corn, millet, cous cous etc all work well.

 

They get everything they need for good egg laying from the layers ration, so take that away and they should stop laying. The trouble is, how do you feed them separately??

 

have you tried mixing cod liver oil with their feed? They need the vitamin D to absorb calcium, it might help?

 

Sorry, not much help

[The Dogmother]

There's not much you can do except for the feed change that Christian mentioned, which may work. It sounds as though her shell gland has packed up, in which case you're unlikely to get any hard eggs from her no matter what you feed her on. Hopefully she'll go through the henopause soon and stop laying.

 

This isn't unusual in ex-batts or heavy laying hybrids. I hope that she stops laying soon and goes into a happy retirement.

[Lesley-Jean]

As Christian said, you would need to ask a vet about this problem but I do know that my vet does hysterectomies on pet chickens if they have a serious egg laying problem !