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

[Orchard]

Hoping someone out there can help.

 

We've had our 2 girls (Clarissa and Jennifer aka Two Fat Ladies) for 2 weeks now and they've been laying for about 5 days. Both appeared to be coming along really well, settled in etc.

 

Today one of them seems a little off colour. We checked for eggs when we got home from work (7'ish) and found the double-yolk contents of an egg in the tray under the roost bars. No sign of any sort of shell though. There was a normal egg (small) which we assume came from the other chook. We think the shell-less egg came from Jennifer as she's been laying the larger eggs and she did a double-yolker as her first egg on Wed last week.

 

About 9:30pm tonight we noticed she was sitting in the garden, quiet with the other one running around up to her usual tricks. I checked Jennifer out and there was another single yolk with the remnents of a soft shell nearby. She's looking a bit off colour, comb not as upright as usual and no-where near as active as she has been. She still appears to be eating a bit. We did notice her poo was a bit runny yesterday but thought that might be a few too many slugs!!

 

Is this just a young bird getting the hang of laying or could it be something else? We've been feeding both of them the same thing, pellets that came from Omlet, currents which the go mad for, the odd slug or two, a few kitchen s"Ooops, word censored!"s (no potato skins) and tomatoes. We've put some extra crushed eggshell in the food but not that much. Clarissa is doing fine...

 

Thanks,

 

A.

[Hen Watch]

Hi Orchard and welcome to the forum.

 

She may just be getting into the swing of this egg laying lark. You can expect a few intermittant soft shelled eggs at first. (You may not have seent the soft shell as they often eat it).

 

If they have a softie on the way, they can be hunched and ill looking. But when the softie is laid they feel better.

 

She is still young and it is probably just that, but do as you are doing already and keep a close eye on her just in case.

[Orchard]

Thanks for the quick reply, jeez it's easy to worry about these critters! They both produced perfect eggs yesterday so hopefully it's just Jennifer getting into the swing of things.

 

Fingers crossed she's back on form soon.

[Orchard]

So Jennifer is certainly more perky this morning, had another softie but at least this one was intact. I put crushed egg shells in there feed to see if that helps. Clarissa produced another lovely egg today, small but perfectly formed.

 

Jennifer seems to be doing those runny poo's that so many people seem to mention. The colour looks normal, maybe a little red/brown in the water bits...will keep any eye on things.

 

I read in on of the threads about feeding them with live yogurt/oats....will try that too.

[Hen Watch]

I used crushed eggshell too which I put in their grit pot (even though the grit I have is mixed grit and has soluable shell in anyway, it doesn't hurt to be OTT).

 

As she is new to laying the softies may just pass. If she's only young and not built up loads of calcium reserves yet then that will mean the odd softie.

 

You can buy Limestone Flour (from a horse supply shop) which is powdered calcium suppliment to chuck in their pellets, but I never used that at first when things were settling down. I do use it now my "old" girls are 2 yrs+ and prone to knocking out softies.

[Orchard]

That sounds like a good plan. See how she settles and we'll keep up with the crushed shells. Do you add grit to the layers mash?? I thought the feed from Omlet had everything a good chuck needed?