scoobs_jne Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 Is a egg with no shell a softie or is a softie an egg with a weak shell? Pepper our RIR has laid 3 eggs over the past week with no shell, just a v.thin membrane. Should we be worried? She has layers pellets, mixed grit & shell and has vermex every month. She seems fine eating as normal and is trotting about distroying the garden whenever she gets the chance. What do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 HI I have been getting some odd ones and so have a few others on here mostly really thin soft shells where the egg has gone through the perch into the poo tray. Exactly like you no real explanations as to why. Mine are new chickens and not sure which one is the culprit but we have been having eggs for 3 weeks now mystery! indie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ain't Nobody Here Posted May 22, 2009 Share Posted May 22, 2009 I'm not sure what the official terminology is! I've been getting shell-less eggs and very thin shelled eggs but call them all softies . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Budgies Posted May 23, 2009 Share Posted May 23, 2009 I think softy means soft shelled egg - the shell looks like a little bit of rubber or chewing gum generally but it's all similar stuff. Sorry to hear that Pepper is laying some. If she's only just started laying it might take her a while to get some proper eggs going, but I would make several suggestions anyway. One is that quite a few people on this forum used Verm-x to worm their chickens until they found out that their chickens had worms despite using the product regularly. I would recommend worming with Flubenvet which is proven to work. (You can buy it online). Secondly, some chickens struggle to assimilate the calcium from mixed grit etc. The best remedy to this seem to be mixing a small amount of cod liver oil (the vitamin d increases their ability to absorb calcium) into their pellets or mash and mixing in some limestone flour (which is pure calcium carbonate and easy for the hens to use) into that. You can get limestone flour from most horse product suppliers, or failing that you can use ground up cuttle fish bone which is the same sort of thing. Hope she improves soon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoobs_jne Posted May 24, 2009 Author Share Posted May 24, 2009 Thanks for all the tips - I'm happy to report she's laid a lovely looking egg today. I'll keep an eye on her though. Thanks again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
