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Sophia originally came from Dianne at Paradise Seramas, and along with Blue Pearl and Cloak and Dagger, was one of the cornerstone hens of my breeding program. However, she has not laid a solid, hard-shelled usable egg in quite some time. I have no idea why, and she’s driving me crazy with frustration! I have tried various solutions to add calcium to her diet including adding fresh greens, adding Vitamin D3, adding oyster shell, adding Calci-sand, adding ground up egg shells, adding vitamins, adding brewer’s yeast…you get the picture!
Absolutely nothing has seemed to work and to compound the problem, she is also eating her soft shelled eggs, which is not a good habit for her to get into. The whole process has been quite frustrating as she has very good type and a wonderful personality, along with a super-sweet disposition, and I would very much like to continue those genes in my future birds!
So, the next, and perhaps final attempt at a cure, is to try Calcarea Carbonica. It is a homeopathic remedy that I picked up at my local health food store. Three to five pellets get dissolved in the drinking water every day…I’ll try this for a week or two, then report my findings here.
Hopefully, this will do the trick and she will return to laying normal, hard-shelled eggs that I can use for hatching. If anyone else has any suggestions that have worked for them, please let me know…I am at my wits end here! 🙂
I look forward to your report of findings. I’m having this issue with a pullet too; lovely hardshelled little eggs at first – then just the membrane eggs for the past two months. I’ve tried the same things you’ve tried. One person mentioned adding ACV to the water, but I’d been doing that anyhow for other reasons. Maybe this CalCarb will be the answer??? Crossing my fingers…
Frustrating, isn’t it??? It’s been one week now, with no discernible change…She has a cup holder for water in her cage, and one in her run, and I’m putting 5 pellets in each cup every day…I’m on container #2, and have #3 in the drawer…I’m hoping to see a change after three weeks, I’ll keep everyone posted!
I recently had a problem with one of my chickens laying very thin eggs. Even the brown egg color was getting lighter. She didn’t even look healthy to me. Come to find out after trying different things I took her to the vet and the blood test result showed that she had a vitamin E deficiency. They they’re not sure why she has this problems since the feed has all the nutrition she needs. They gave her a vitamin shot and told me to get Vitamin E powder to sprinkle on her food. She’s doing much better, the eggs are getting stronger and the brown colors is coming back. Look up Vitamin E deficiency in chickens on the internet, it can cause all kinds of problems.
Deneen-Thanks so much for that info! I know a deficiency of Vit E can cause leg problems in chicks similiar to a Muscular Dystrophy condition, but this is news to me…I will pick up some powder this week, just in case she still has these mushy eggs next week…How weird that everyone is eating the same food, and she’s the only one having this problem (for months now!)
Thanks once again for your suggestion! 🙂
Just like people some chickens probably don’t metabolise things the same way. I’m not saying this is the problem with your chicken, but it’s another thing to try. In my short 2 year experience with Seramas, it seems like they can be a little more sensitive then the bigger chickens. I also read somewhere that the roosters seem to be more suseptible to the effects of Vitamin E deficiency. By the way I was the buyer that bought Jimmy in your last auction. He’s doing great, I just need to find him a good smooth feathered mate. My girls are frizzled.
Deneen-I went to the health food store and 2 feedstores today, to no avail, so came home and ordered some Vit. E powder online (meant for humans :)). I figure it should arrive in a week or so, just about when my supply of CalCarb will be up, so it will have been given a fair trial…And yes, I agree that food and nutrients do seem to be more important to the serama as a breed!
I’m glad Jimmy is doing well! I kept his brother and have him with two smooth chocolate girls (I only have 3, one of whom is too young yet)…I am trying very hard to produce a smooth chocolate boy, since most of my girls are frizzled here as well ;).
Thanks once again for the information!
I would be interested to find out if the Vitamin E works. If u think about it down the line drop me a line. Thanks.
if this ends up being a digestive or metabolisim problem, it is likely genetic and I would be a little leery of breeding her. hopefully she has a cold or stress on her system that is causing her to lay the soft eggs and/or have the Vit E or calcium deficiency- or whatever is going on.
Soft Shelled Eggs
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I found this on the Omlet site. Hope it helps
A thin shelled egg is one that has such a thin shell that it may crack or break when picked up. This is a photograph of a thin shelled egg where the shell was so thin that it dented as it was picked up. The picture on the right is of mis-formed and soft shelled eggs.
A soft shelled egg is one that has the shell either totally missing or resembling a fine soft membrane. It may look like a blob of jelly with a yolk. The egg usually breaks and the soft shell then just looks like a wrinkled piece of material.
Occasionally a hen appears quite ill, quiet and hunched for an hour or so before a soft shelled egg is laid, but then recovers completely soon after laying. A hen that behaves like this occasionally may have produced a soft egg that is eaten before you see it. A clue is the quick return to absolutely normal activity and behaviour.
[edit] Frequency and Possible Causes
It is quite common for a hen to very occasionally lay a thin-shelled or soft-shelled egg. A few hens do this for a short while and a very few may do this for several weeks.
This is extremely unlikely to indicate a problem with a hen. The one-off dodgy egg is just a blip in the egg production system, possibly caused by a shock, but usually no cause can be found.
09/06/10: A shock can be a mild as a sudden downpour of rain. We probably wouldn’t think twice about it but to a chicken, it must seem as if the sky is falling down! When homing your chickens, be aware of such things like:
– are you near a place where game shoots take place?
– is there a bird scarer in a field near you?
– do lorries thunder up and down your road?
– when you stack things up in the garden, could they fall and make a noise?
[edit] Treatment
If you do get more than one thin/soft shelled egg from a hen, you may find it helpful to review the amount of calcium your hens get in their feed. A good quality layers mash/pellets should contain enough, but hens that eat a lot of other things while free ranging, or get lots of treats may need extra calcium. You can buy poultry grit or oyster shell from feed merchants, or you can recycle your own egg shells. Just bake them and then grind them up.
A few people have noticed that their hen looks ‘poorly’ and is quiet and ‘hunched up’ for an hour or so before laying a soft shelled egg. The hen then makes a miraculous recovery after laying the soft egg. This is nothing to worry about.
Some people have used Shellstim, a liquid which you add to the hens’ drinking water to provide extra calcium. No longer available. Zolcal D or Davinova C can be used instead.
Adding Limestone Flour (calcium carbonate), which you can get from equestrian suppliers, to their feed is another way of getting extra calcium into the hen.
Not only do the hens need calcium to form good quality shells, but it is also vital in the process of enabling the muscles to contract to expel the egg.
Hello! It’s been a few months…So did either the calcium carbonate or the vitamin E have any positive effects on Sophia’s eggs, or are they still soft shelled???? I’m so hoping you found a solution, since I’m dealing with this too.
Crystal-
No, nothing seemed to work for Sophia’s egg problem…I eventually lost her to what I can only assume was some sort of peritonitis…No matter what I tried, nothing helped, and she eventually became very lethargic and stopped eating, and then developed a nasty discharge, so I’m thinking peritonitis is a safe assumption. I am scared to death of it happening again, but like you, I’m still searching for answers…I’d appreciate hearing from you if find out anything else to try, and I’ll be sure to post if I hear of anything new on this end!
Hi there,
For the soft shell problem I used Fertical a product fr pigeons by a company called Avio Med. (Available at Pigeon feed stores)Basically you mix the powder until it’s like toothpaste then add it to a soft food like canary egg food. Directions say 3 x weekly. It worked for my Silver Sebright hen. I have a trio and one hen always laid soft shell eggs then they ate them. On the same regular diet the other hen lays perfect eggs. I also added about 6 pot pigeon eggs for the to peck at. This helped to break the egg eating habit by confusing them and also since they didn’t get a food reward they gave up…but I still keep a very close eye on them.
Good luck.
Garry
Gary-
Thanks for the info, I will order it today! I was not able to help Sophia, and I eventually lost her to peritonitis (I believe)…the occasional soft egg doesn’t concern me too much, but when a productive hen starts laying nothing but soft or shelless eggs, there’s a big problem ahead…perhaps this will help!
Once again, thanks so much for the info!
I have had this same problem with one of my hens who was laying fine till a couple weeks ago and the only thing I am coming up with is EDS….Egg Drop Syndrome…It is a virus and it seems the only things to try an help are, send her into an early molt to stop production temporarily or let it run its course 4 to 10 weeks and see if she makes it…Good thing to read up on..