Chicken boarders

[Mercedes55]

We have a couple of young girls that we bought just over a month ago at POL. They both started laying within a day or so of us getting them. Our little White Leghorn lays a very nice white egg, but our Sussex Ranger lays an egg that is not only quite small but always has a very thin shell. So far we haven't been able to eat any of her eggs as they always have some kind of crack in them and if we don't get to them quick enough the other girls walk on them and totally break them. All our girls are on the same diet of a good quality pellet food with just a handful of mealworms in the evening. I have heard she could be lacking in calcium but would a hen that is so young and eating the same as the others be short of calcium? Our ex batts eggs have a thicker shell than hers. Would add she is also a bit of feather plucker/eater too

[Henergy]

I too am experiencing a thin shell dilemma (not from my elder two who are on same food etc and laying beautifully) - I've had 2 real softies, then an egg with very thin and rough porous shell. The culprit is one of two hens both POL or near. However, one has already laid about 5 lovely big 'normal' eggs but the other should be a green layer & none of the soft/thin shelled look green !!!

 

Mine have access to mixed grit but I've never seen any chickens go near it so what I did was mix a small handful into the feed. I've also mixed in some baked crushed egg shells too and thrown in a couple of handfuls of spinach which is full of calcium)

 

Coincidence or not, today I have a smallish brown egg with almost perfect shell (little bit rough) - so I suspect my speckledy who did lay a few 'normals' to start - is having a laying blip & doing the softies. (Is that possible ?)

 

A more experienced person can probably shed more light

[Mercedes55]

I have to say I get very confused as to what goes on in the world of chickens at times. I am used to our ex batts laying thin shelled eggs and softies are something we are also used to with them and we just put some limestone flour in their food and that seems to help them.

 

But you kind of expect a hybrid POL hen to lay a normal egg and we do make sure they have a ready supply of oyster shell and I do keep the egg shells and grind them up and put that in the dishes too. Don't want to start putting calcium supplements that they will all eat or drink as I read somewhere that too much calcium can be bad, just can't recall where I read that