I have had to write this post in hindsight because my camera card stopped working. It wouldn’t let me access my photos so there has been a delay while I ordered another card and waited for it to arrive.
Smoke went broody again four days ago. She had laid eight eggs in ten days. As a serial broody her laying time between bouts of being broody is getting shorter and shorter.
It is frustrating that our best, little girl, layer only has such short bursts of laying.
Marmite is still struggling with laying. She often looks miserable in the afternoon and then lays a soft shelled egg in the chicken shed in the morning. This is happening on average about every three days.
A few days ago I found a really tiny egg in the chicken shed in the morning. This may be the tiniest yet. It was about the size of a small blueberry. I am guessing that this was from Marmite.
Smoke is broody so isn’t laying and both Salmon and Spangle are laying normal eggs on average every two to three days. They had both laid the day before the tiny egg. Marmite had laid a soft shelled egg two days before and has since laid another soft shelled egg two days later.
I looked inside after I had taken this photo and there was no yolk.
Marmite has laid a selection of the most odd eggs I have come across during my time keeping chickens. There is obviously something adrift with her ability to make shells because I see her taking the grit and oyster shell and sometimes her soft shells have calcium bubbles/pimples on them. It is as if the calcium isn’t forming in the correct place.
It is also odd that Marmite laid properly last year and this problem has developed this year. Fortunately Marmite bounces back as soon as the egg is laid.
I just hope that Marmite continues to bounce back and I have a faint hope that maybe in time her egg laying will improve again but only time will tell.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
That is sad, smallest hens egg I have ever seen. Hope she soon bounce back.
She is okay again now until the next time. I feel sad that she has to be uncomfortable before laying her eggs and there is nothing I can do to help her. She does bounce back quickly though.
Aw poor Marmite – I hope this is just a bit of a blip for her xx
Unfortunately this seems to be regular with Marmite. She does lay the occasional egg with a shell ( but thin ) occasionally but at least two out of three of her eggs are soft shelled. xx
She is having problems; fortunately, between whatever eggs she produces, she seems to recover. It is something I’ve only experienced with older hens – Scaley, my welsummer, is at least 8 and has come back into lay – 2 or 3 eggs a week. Last year, she was unable to produce any colour for a bird whose eggs were a lovely shade of terracotta, but they did have shells, even if a bit chalky. This year, the colour has returned and the shells are better, but she has laid 2 soft-shelled eggs. We’ll never understand what goes on with them. I’ll email you separately with a chick update – Butterscotch and Blackie have 8 between them. 🙂
Speckles, my older girl, hasn’t laid so far this year. My egg laying problems have always been with these younger girls so I think that there is a problem internally that isn’t down to age. I just hope that Marmite will continue to bounce back and be well in between laying. As you say, we will never understand why this happens.
I will look forward to a chick update. Eight chicks is a great result and I can’t wait to hear more. x
I can’t count: there are, in fact 9! Will email you some photos. Probably I spoke too soon about Scaley: she seems to be struggling to pass a shell-less egg today, and does not look good at all – she’d be better to stop altogether and join those younger than her who no longer lay.
I shall look forward to the photos. I too wish we could tell the girls that struggle to lay to take a break but we can’t do anything about that.