Chicken bald back

[AndyRoo]

Well, this morning I went out and I've found the bluebelle in the nesting box (she immediately hopped out, so I must have disturbed her! oops!).

 

I checked the roosting bars and on those there was 1 egg split in half (very thin shell) and I noticed 2 egg yolks. When I cleared that out, I noticed there was a 3rd half of an egg shell... I think.

I suppose it's possible that what I thought was the other half of the egg shell was in fact a soft membrane and not a shell and, as such, there was 1 egg shell and 2 yolks. But the egg shell looked pretty small for a double-yolker.

 

Could the egg have broken inside her? It seems a bit odd that she'd lay an egg, then lay a second one right after and have that break? Unless, can chickens store eggs in them like one of those prize machines?

 

She seems to be out there again now still trying to lay. So I want to leave her be for a little while, just incase she does manage to lay another egg! What should I do?

 

Help!

[Beantree]

Quite normal for chickens coming into lay (or out of) to lay some weird eggs AndyRoo. May be soft shelled or even shell-less. Could be she laid a soft shelled double-yolker this morning, whilst still on the perch. She will still go into the nest box though as it is ovulation, release of a yolk from the ovary into the oviduct, that triggers them to go to lay. The laying is shortly afterwards, the egg having been in process of growth for 25 hours or so.

 

So she has ovulated and will return tomorrow to lay something better I think?

 

She may have broken the egg inside her, only time will tell. It can result in infection, but usually (and every single time in our dozens of cases) any bits remaining will simply be passed out without internal injury.

 

Based on what you have said in other posts the underlying cause may be that she is too fat at the moment and is unable to pass a double-yolker without breaking it. Hopefully a single yolk egg will go through alright and , once laying, she will gradually lose weight.

[AndyRoo]

I went out and checked again and came to the conclusion that she layed a not fully formed egg on the perch which broke, and possibly a second which was shell-less.

 

She's still out in the roosting box now, so I don't know how long I should leave her before I get concerned...

 

When I speak about her size, I am referring to her height more than anything; she's not fat, just taller than the rest. But then she is a bigger breed.

[emmalou]

This happened a few times when we first got our hens. Quite normal. Even now we have an egg broken with just it's membrane in the roosting section. It does take some time for new layers to sort themselves out a little.

[Beantree]

Just fetch her out AndyRoo and see how she behaves. She won't lay anything in there and is perhaps still waiting to. We have one that regularly lays softies, still goes into the nest box as if nothing is wrong and comes out up to two hours later. If it was any longer than that I'd investigate, but have now learned just to leave her as she's neither sick nor broody.

[AndyRoo]

Well, she seems completely fine now - I'm just going to write it off as a panic. Blame our first 2 layers: they got it perfect each time from the off, so my expectations were high.

 

She is now happily playing with her sisters in the run. I also got back to discover that our little white star had obviously been waiting to lay, as we had one of hers waiting for us.

 

It looks like once the bluebelle gets going properly, her eggs are going to be a mildly pink-ish shell. That'll be interesting!

Edited November 11, 2016 by Guest

[sjp]

give her a few dried meal worms for a few days it might help with the egg shell an hand full or 2 for the afternoon treat will do if she's still laying soft eggs by the middle of next week you might be best getting a bottle of Life Guard tonic it's made for young layers as it helps get the body into egg laying mode and over the stress of first time egg laying it's also useful if hens suffer badly through a moult you'll need to look on line of it

double yolkers can be small for the first couple as the yolks are small

at least it now goes small way to confirm she hadn't started to lay before you got her

classic soft shelled egg symptoms hunched up and miserable until the egg is laid them with in minutes as right as rain. it's because the egg has no shell the muscle have nothing to push against, first time I saw one of my girls like that was no fun at all nothing in any of the books covered the topic luckerly this and the forum came to the rescue that and 2 coffees and a pint of cider to calm me down

[AndyRoo]

That or she was laying before we got her and something has gone terribly wrong!

 

Hopefully she'll try again tomorrow or the next day and we can see what she is like then. The egg did seem to have a light pinkish tinge, whereas the ranger was a much more typical egg colour.

 

I was interested to see what colour her eggs would be as I'd been reading the bluebelles can lay a whole range of colours depending on what strain they come from. If I got a pink egg from them, that would be exciting!

[sjp]

That or she was laying before we got her and something has gone terribly wrong!

 

Hopefully she'll try again tomorrow or the next day and we can see what she is like then. The egg did seem to have a light pinkish tinge, whereas the ranger was a much more typical egg colour.

 

I was interested to see what colour her eggs would be as I'd been reading the bluebelles can lay a whole range of colours depending on what strain they come from. If I got a pink egg from them, that would be exciting!

the size of the egg yolk will give you a reasonable idea of how long she's been laying. small yolks in the early days but they soon start to grow. soft shelled eggs are slightly a different matter they can be an indicator of something wrong health wise but at the moment that's jumping the gun. some youngsters do lay a few soft eggs in the first few days until their body gets used to egg laying mainly making the right type of calcium compound to make egg shell, the calcium they they get fed in the form of mixed grit and in the layers feed isn't they right type for the body to use so has to be converted by an amino acid which can be missing from the body or in low supply in the early days. meal worms contain a source of the amino acid as doe's Life guard and is a quick fix 99% of the time and should show in the next or next but one egg i.e. nice strong egg shell. Dandelion leafs are a good source of calcium that the body can convert a lot easier. One of My first chickens was a Columbian black tail hybrid that didn't make enough of the Amino acid to make egg shells so I had to put Life Guard in the drinking water about every 6 weeks plus meal worms once a week just as a treat and I still feed dandelion leaves when available. I do have a Light Sussex hen that until about 6 weeks ago very rarely laid a good shelled egg but a bout of broodiness and her 2nd full moult seems to have had an affect on her and she had started to lay more good eggs that poor ones I just hope once she starts to lay again she carries on (no eggs for a week) as I really want to hatch so from her

[AndyRoo]

Well, I am not entirely sure this news is good.

 

We had another egg today, which was smaller in size and had a pinkish tinge the same as the one yesterday. The shell was relatively normal, although it did have a little grey dusting on it. That's the good bit of the news.

 

The bad bit of the news is that all day she has been sat on her own, minding her own business and not making any noise - none of which is characteristic of her. She's also not been feeding and isn't scratching around.

 

I went out to give them some mixed corn and meal worms. She sat there and ignored me for a bit but then came over and pecked at it for a while. At least she has now eaten something.

 

I am worried because I am not convinced this story is going to have a happy ending! Although I will cross my fingers and hope for the best.

[AndyRoo]

Okay - another little update, I think she may have been slightly egg-bound.

 

I noted her tail feathers were pointed down as opposed to up, so did a bit of Googling, and she had several of the symptoms. I decided to go out and check her vent and feel her tummy to see if it felt like there was a lump of an egg there.

 

So I picked her up and (in a very undignified manner) turned her over. Her vent looked like it was spasming slightly, but I couldn't feel any lump or anything around the area, or in her tummy.

 

I turned her up the right way again and I don't know if it was Myrtle pecking around my shoe or not, but I looked down and right next to my shoe was a very large (about the size of a lemon!) soft-shelled egg in her token pink blush. I've binned the egg, but I am wondering if that was what was wrong with her.

 

They have plenty of oyster shell both in a feeding pot and scattered throughout the run, but if there anything else I can give her as a calcium supplement? Would it help if I crushed up some people calcium pills and sprinkled that on their food?

 

I have been trying to give my girls some veggies, but so far they have not been interested in them at all...

Edited November 12, 2016 by Guest

[Ursula123]

Think you can give them a supplement called Zolcal -d. It is a liquid calcium.

[Hippie Chick]

Hello

 

I have a Bluebelle (Brunhilde) that did exactly the same as yours when first laying, no-shelled eggs, softies, paper thin shells, some in the nest box, some while roosting at night, some in the run and once she laid a softie while walking down the garden when free-ranging without blinking an eye lol. My dog pounced and had that egg! The other four all laid perfectly normal eggs, just Brunhilde that had to be different! She also laid two in the same day several times, and when she did start laying one nice egg a day the first few were double yolkers.

 

I have to say that it went on for at least 2 months and her routine and shell quality slowly settled down and now (well, maybe not now as she's stopped laying with her moult) she lays one nice normal egg, maybe 4 or 5 times a week.

 

I doubt it was anything to do with calcium issues, just a young pullet settling into the swing of things.

[AndyRoo]

I doubt it was anything to do with calcium issues, just a young pullet settling into the swing of things.

 

Hopefully. It was more the fact that the last 2 days have obviously taken a lot out of her (excuse the terrible pun!). I thought maybe if I gave her a little extra calcium it might thicken the shells and then she wouldn't strain so much.

 

The more I have read about egg bound hens, the more I think her symptoms match that description. Particularly as she was squatting a lot and had her tail feathers facing down.

[mullethunter]

Did she seem happier after that egg?

[AndyRoo]

Did she seem happier after that egg?

 

It wasn't like a flick of the switch or anything. She was still crouching and had her tail feathers down a little, although she did become more animated afterward. She seemed to start scratching about a bit more... when we first noticed her earlier she was literally just sat in a corner on her own looking miserable.

 

OH went out and checked that she had put herself to bed with the rest, which she had. That's a bit of relief, I was expecting her to be sat down in the corner all lethargic and withdrawn like she was earlier.

 

Maybe I am just being super paranoid because this is all new to me.

[Hippie Chick]

I forgot to mention that trying to pass a soft egg or a shell-less egg can be quite painful and difficult in comparison to a fully formed egg. Maybe that's why she was so miserable and it's a possibility that the adrenaline and unusual position of being picked up and turned over helped to eject the egg!

 

I hope she's feeling more like herself today x

[sjp]

Did she seem happier after that egg?

 

It wasn't like a flick of the switch or anything. She was still crouching and had her tail feathers down a little, although she did become more animated afterward. She seemed to start scratching about a bit more... when we first noticed her earlier she was literally just sat in a corner on her own looking miserable.

 

OH went out and checked that she had put herself to bed with the rest, which she had. That's a bit of relief, I was expecting her to be sat down in the corner all lethargic and withdrawn like she was earlier.

 

Maybe I am just being super paranoid because this is all new to me.

partly but hens trying to lay soft eggs do look like death warmed up for an age but after a few minutes after the egg is laid their running about with out a care in the world

because it's only one hen laying softies it's not a lack of calcium in their diet so don't be tempted to put any grit in with the feed to much calcium can be as bad as not enough. try the meal worms as the evening treat 2 or 3 times this week a good couple of hand fulls between all the girls should be OK but try to girls the bluebelle a few extra while the others are distracted. hopefully it's just a new layer getting into the swing of egg production and it will sort it's self out in an egg or two with any luck she'll take a day or 2 off that some times is enough to set up the egg production properly

[The Dogmother]

all very normal Andy, so don't worry unduly.

 

Bluebelles will often lay a pinkish egg

 

Soft shelled and slightly irregular eggs are completely normal, as is a slightly erratic laying pattern. A bit like human menstruation

 

I always supplement new layers with a good poultry tonic; Life-Guard and Nettex's Vit Boost are good ones.

 

Try not to worry and let them get on with it.

[AndyRoo]

Well, this morning she is out there running around and being the normal bossy loud-mouth that she always is.

 

That makes me feel better. Right now I am putting some ACV in their water, hopefully that might perk her up a bit.

[chickencam]

Any further news?

One of my new girls laid a normal egg one day followed by two soft ones later in the evening then a week or so later a large double yolker. She is now laying a normal egg daily. Our largest new hen a black tail was also the last one tokay her first egg.

[AndyRoo]

Any further news?

 

She has gone back to being her perfectly normal self. As per my other thread, she laid 2 very large eggs which were double yolkers, but now she has started laying smaller more medium sized eggs like our little ranger.

 

She seems totally fine. We're getting an egg from her every single day now. In fact for the last couple of days all 3 of our current layers have given us one each day, so we've got eggs a plenty right now.