[Laurieston]

One of my Welsummers keeps laying soft eggs.  They are not 'wind eggs' in that they do have a white and a yolk, but mostly the shell is so soft it breaks when I pick it up.  Her sisters etc, lay normally and I have wormed them all. 

Does anyone have any idea as to why this might be, or what I can do about it?

Thanks.

[sh3ph3rd]

Can be due to a lot of things. Illness, injury, poisoning/toxicity are a few. I had one chicken stomped on by a vengeful horse who laid soft shelled or only-just-membrane'd eggs for a year. Then they solidified but were rippled and... interesting, lol...

Possibly the chook didn't take well to the worming and it's taken a whack of calcium out of her? Basically anything that causes the body to lose calcium rapidly can cause soft shelled eggs, and everything from sickness to bone breaks to serious wounds to strong pain to toxicity can do it... Hens store up a lot of the calcium needed for the laying season in their leg bones and skeleton so they don't have a mad scramble to obtain the necessary calcium day after day. Is she light when you lift her? Any layer hen in good condition will be surprisingly heavy for her size.

[chrismahon]

The bird's age and lack of sunlight are factors as well Laurieston. I think you need to give her time and make sure your layers pellets are good quality. Make sure you remove her eggs before they get broken as that can be the start of an egg eating nightmare.

[Laurieston]

Thanks Guys.  Yes she is older, nearly 4 years old.  She, and her sisters are totally free range, until I have to chase them off the newly sown patches in the lawn (grrr!).  The others lay hard eggs, albeit sometimes in not where they are meant to.  We are in Germany, and as you may have seen we have had LOTS of rain (we're luckily not flooded here), so missed a lot of sunshine too.  They do have a pot of grit and stones, but I will also try to feedback crushed eggshells, got to be worth it, and very recycling friendly too.

Thanks.

[sh3ph3rd]

Definitely worth feeding back the eggshells. Regarding egg eating, I know some birds make the leap from eating raw egg to breaking eggs to eat them but for years my flock regularly had eggs and I never had egg eaters.

Then a brought-in hen started it and trained up a bunch of others, and in no time I had an egg eating problem on my hands. I think most birds won't figure it out unless taught by an egg eater. Sometimes they've tried to eat a pipping egg... Not good! 

I used to feed them back any slightly developed eggs I found in 'illicit' nests for all those years, and never had one egg eater until a leghorn taught them! Now, I'm back to religiously removing eggs and only leaving what I call the 'nest eggs' which are made of plaster of paris and painted to seal them. I found some instinctive wannabe broodies will forsake the nests permanently if you take all the eggs, and rats were a problem for a bit because of the horse stomped hen's leavings, hence the original making of fake eggs. Some rats are so stupid that they will eat halfway into a plaster egg before they realize there's no yolk and give up! lol...

[Laurieston]

I've got some nice blue pellet things that I could maybe put inside some of those plaster eggs for the rats.  Might improve the taste, and certainly the outcome!!!

[sh3ph3rd]

I've got some nice blue pellet things that I could maybe put inside some of those plaster eggs for the rats.  Might improve the taste, and certainly the outcome!!!

Yeah... Until the chooks find the rats that found the pellets. Dunno if your chooks eat rats/mice/snakes but mine do. I also have a dog I've trained to be a ratter and a cat who also needed training to kill rats, and once in a blue moon they too eat their kills (very rarely but once is enough)... I don't use poisons of any kind due to the risks.

Also I practice the deep litter compost methods so anything harmful in the nests will end up in the flooring where they also dustbathe and feed so I can't risk it even if I was sure somehow that no rat would be eaten. Pellets getting mixed into their dirt would be bad.