My lady laying soft, grainy, pale eggs...what's up?

[Cherrypie32]

On of my girls egg production as tailed off and when she does lay (every 2-3 days) they are very pale, the shell is grainy in texture and either misshaped or soft shell. Does she need more oyster shell/grit or a supplement? Hope she is ok? Can anyone shed any light for me, Thankyou x

The pale yolks are caused by a lack of carotenoids (either feed greens of maize). Shell less and misshapen eggs are most common in birds coming into lay or older hens. Oyster shell might help that but if her egg production is diminsishing it might be something else so;

How old is she?
Is she eating?
Are her poos normal?
Is there any unusual smell?
Is she behaving normally

Worms can also cause softies. Have you wormed her recently?

I use lime flour if we get grainy eggs, seems to do the trivk.

What's lime flour?

Thanks for all your replies. It isn't her yolks that are pale it's the eggshell itself but that I'd less of an issue than the soft shell. I spoke to a lady at the place where I get their food today and after Google too I am pretty sure she is just calcium deficient. She is only about 9 months old and fine in every other way. I am going to bump up the oyster shell and, as per advice here, will also worm as not done this winter.

Are you feeding layers pellets? They have added calcium.

Well I do but they don't really like them. I have also tried on recommendations porridge/lettuce/greens/raisins and they don't like these either! They did fight over a frog they found while free ranging the other day, vile

They do seem to like that 'scratch' powdery, grainy stuff though & corn before you wonder if they are starving!

That's where you're going wrong!

What's happening is that she is filling up on scratch (which is about as nutritious as smarties are for your children) and so not feeling the need to eat layers pellets (the meat-and-two-veg of chicken nutrition).

Best thing to do is to offer layers pellets ad lib (as they always should be) and avoid giving any treats for a while. Once the shell problem has improved, you can reintroduce some scratch / other treats (although fresh greens etc. are better for them). However, these should be fed in minimal quantities (not every day, and in snack-sized portions), and in the late afternoon. This means that the hen in question will have had to eat her meat-and-two-veg layers pellets before she gets her pudding (scratch).

seriously lime flour, you get it from horse shops and that type of place, it is a powder that you put on their food and sorted the same problem out straight away.

Too much calcium in the diet can lead to problems with vitamin D and phosphorous absorption, which can in turn lead to brittle bones.

Sort out your normal feeding routine, as above, with oyster shell always available, and leave it a few weeks before you start messing around with a dairy cow supplement.

Thanks for help here. I have now gone back to purely pellets feeding and will throw in some corn, scraps etc for treats only. Also will be worming regularly as been slack. Sadly my lady was in a such a sorry state yesterday morning I took her to the vets and she didn't come home. She didn't come out of her coop and when I looked there was lots of fresh blood, vet said she had prolapsed. He didn't shed much light on why/how this had happened. Is it bad luck, did the soft shell cause it?

This article here www.agric.gov.ab.ca/livestock/poultry/prolapse.html suggests that there probably was a link.

However, the important thing now is to make sure that the diet of your other hens is improved, so that hopefully it won't happen again.

Incidentally, what sort of vets do you use? I dabbled around with a few small animal vets (useless, the lot of them) until I tried a local farm vets (only about 7 miles from the city centre and 2 miles from the outskirts of town, so not a great distance to travel) and found that they were much better - they knew what to do with chickens, and they were the 'no-nonsense' types which know not to fleece owners for money to line their own pockets.

Yes def learnt a lesson and especially to keep them in good condition over winter. I took her to the vets we have always used for our dog although DH wasn't happy as it cost £37 for the privilage but I wanted to check there wasn't anything we could do for her and wouldn't have been able to actually kill her myself. As I said he didn't shed much light on the problem, that article is more constructive. If I had any problems again I might look for an ag vet.
Thanks for your posts x