Installing Indoor Cat Tree

[Guest]

I'm wondering about a few things. Today is our third egg day, I am certain all of the eggs have been laid by Pengy, todays certainly was as I saw her in the Eglu when June was still outside and collected the egg shortly after. I thought she would lay specked eggs and todays is but the last 2 days the eggs have been just brown - is it usual for them to change colour as the girls lay more?

 

My second question is regarding the nesting box, I have it well lined with shredded paper but each day Pengy just pushes it all aside before laying and then I find the egg just on bare plastic. The shells are fairly thin still and todays egg is a little cracked - any ideas of how to solve this problem?

 

I've put a picture of todays and yesterays eggs to show the difference - you can just see where the egg is a little dented.

 

[Sarah 2]

2 of my girls have been laying for just over week. Somtimes they like to lay on the plastic other times they lay on the wood shavings. We've had a few with thin or soft shells. I give mine oyster shell to make the shell harder. Other people on here use other things, so I'm sure they'll let you know. As for colour I've had all sorts of different colours. I think it's normal.

[chocchick]

You can get different eggs, although it is more dramatically different than mine. I can usually identify who laid it, but sometimes the size/shape/speckling makes it impossible to tell between 2 chickens.

You could experiment with sheets of newspaper, or straw or bedding e.g. aubiose.

It might be because she is young. Megan went through a phase of shredding pieces off the whole newspaper, scrabbling violently and damaging any eggs that were already there. No damage now although the odd shredding of paper.

[Helly Welly]

Perhaps if you put some wood shavings in the bottom, then shredded paper as she won't be able to move the shavings out of the way so easily?

 

My eggs vary in size shape and colour every day and no two eggs from one hen are ever the same. Variety is the spice of life!

 

For egg hardness get some poultry grit. Some people mix it into their food, i have a separate grub full of it, or you could scatter it into their run. They will take what they need.

[Guest]

Thanks, they have a glug full of grit (their water is in anothe container - mind you with all the rain there is a fair amount of water in with the grit). I figured the shells would get harder with time, I wasn't that worried about the thin ness, I only noticed it as I cracked the first egg.

 

I will try putting in more materials to the nesting box, I have aubiouse but I'd rather save money and recycle the junk mail!

[Snowy]

I've found that eventually I can tell which hen lays which egg. Out of 3 gingernuts, all their eggs are completely different. But each hen's eggs are consistantly the same shape and colour. Beryl = large, pale beige, pointy ended; Florrie = smooth brown, elongated; Pom = chesnut brown and very rounded shape. There are sometimes slight changes to the norm but not often (I know, I'm an egg anorak )