Really thing egg shell

[LoopyLoopsBettyBoops]

What causes this, and how can I prevent it? (Only had the hens 2 days!)

Thanks :)

thin not thing! Sorry!

More grit. If you provide it they will do the rest

Thanks, that's what I thought.

I also roasted and crushed up some eggshells and put with their grit - is that the right thing to do?

Oh, and what do I do with the egg that has a really soft shell? Is it still edible?

If it is actually a shell then yes. If its just membrane technically then yes but I wouldn't

there is also a product called something like shellstim if you needed more oomph

Sorry yes crush egg shell is fine

Its more like membrane I think, kind of rubbery, flexible and really thin. Can I scramble it and feed it back to them? Or to the cats?

I would go for that option. I fed our last membrane egg to the dog. She's still with us. It's probably fine but it made me feel a bit odd and I'm pretty pragmatic about these things normally

Thanks bronze :)

Mine do this when they have worms.

Worm every month with a product called Flubenvet.

Will do, thanks. They were rescued from the battery farm on Sunday - are they likely to have been wormed recently? Does it matter if I do them again? Also, I presume it's OK to eat eggs a)if the hens have worms and b) if they've just been wormed?

Thanks. :)

If you feed them back egg shells stick the shells in the microwave for a couple of minutes to kill anything on them, crush them up and sprinkle them out with their normal food for them to eat. we don't feed whole eggs (anything other than the shell) to ours because it apparently encourages them to peck at their own eggs once they have laid them. Not sure if this is true or old farmers tale but seems to make sense. With any medication it is always worth re-checking whether you can eat the eggs or not straight away. your girls will have been fed lots of antibiotics when they were batts so to be honest we always wait a couple of weeks before eating our ex batts eggs. The colour of the yolk changes from pale yellow to orange and at that point we start eating them when i am sure they no longer have antibiotics in their system. i am probably the only weird person who does this but i have lots of allergies to antibiotics so like to be on the safe side.

Oh I hadn't thought of the antibiotics. Having said that, all yolks so far have been orange - that's a good sign then?

I did roast the shells, I read somewhere that would change the taste enough to not encourage them to eat their eggs.

I think ex batts are pretty resistant to most parasites, but if you're allowing them outside onto grass/soil, then it will be an idea to worm them regularly.

If you've only had them a short time then I doubt it's worms.

Buy a poultry tonic and add some extra oyster shell into their pellets. The pellets do contain shell, but a little extra won't do any harm.

It could be the shock and their generally poor condition that's causing this problem, so try to build them up.

Thank you.

It's only been one egg with this problem, out of 7 (in 2 days, 4 hens) so hopefully a bit of grit and shell will sort it out.

Do you recommend any tonic in particular? Is it OK to go in a galvanised drinker? Someone told me not to with apple cider vinegar (which I haven't bought yet, nor tonic).