Soft shelled eggs

Much to my surprise this morning when I went out to the girls just after first light, I found two soft shelled eggs on the floor of the coop. They were Dotty and Pepper’s eggs.

Soft shelled eggs

I would say that Pepper’s egg is on the right and Dotty’s egg on the left because Pepper’s eggs are always smaller than Dotty’s and because Dotty laid yesterday morning but Pepper didn’t lay until yesterday afternoon so I am really surprised that she has laid again so soon.

This is my first experience of soft shelled eggs and I really hope this is just a glitch and not another ongoing problem as we do seem to lurch from one problem to the next.

We have had three days now of no feather pulling and really feel we have passed through that now, so could do without going straight on to the next problem.

Bluebell laid her egg a few hours later in the nest box and it was perfectly normal. Bluebell (and Treacle before she died) have always laid very hard shelled eggs but Pepper and Dotty’s have never been so hard even though there is a hopper always filled with grit and oyster shell which they all help themselves to.

My theory is that because I had increased giving things to the girls to peck at, to distract them from the feather plucking, they have not been eating so many pellets and this may have upset the balance. I noticed yesterday for the first time that they hadn’t eaten many pellets. They also don’t seem to like the feeder raised up and flick much more of their food onto the floor, so today I have put the feeder back on the floor and already much more of the food has been eaten.

I had been giving them extra greens and also corn on the cob each day which they had never had before. I am going to return to their former routine of some spring greens mid morning and an apple mid afternoon and nothing else besides their pellets but some extra protein sometimes as a boost.

Dotty’s egg today was the thirteenth day in a row and Pepper’s was the fifth in a row. Bluebell’s was the twenty first day in a row, she is a really prolific layer. Dotty usually lays ten in a row then misses a day and Pepper usually lays three or four in a row then misses a day. Bluebell usually lays anywhere between fifteen and twenty one in a row then misses a day.

I really think this must be due to diet (not enough pellets) because it’s really strange that it’s happened to both Pepper and Dotty at exactly the same time. They are both the same breed (dominiques) but Pepper is a month older than Dotty and Dotty started laying two months later than Pepper, so she was a month older when she started laying.

I think that as they are laying so regularly at the moment it probably doesn’t take much to upset the balance.

I broke the eggs into a bowl and the soft shell was more like skin. Dotty’s egg was normal inside but Pepper’s egg had no white, this may be why it appeared so small and may be due to her laying less than twenty four hours apart.

I scrambled the eggs with a little olive oil and water to give back to the girls so as not to waste them and also return the goodness to them.

Scrambled egg

They really love this and it was gone in minutes. I will need to see if the next eggs return to normal or if it continues in which case I will start giving lime stone flour to improve the egg shells. I really hope they take a day off tomorrow then return to normal but we will have to wait and see.