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Hello All,

3 of my 4 hens have now started laying and they have been laying very consistently with good, strong shells (albeit with the eggs being a bit on the small side so far). Yesterday I found 2 eggs in one of my flower beds - they looked pretty fresh - but neither had shells on them. I have read that this can happen and that this is the reason you feed extra grit to the birds, but I was surprised as all the eggs so far have had very good shells.

I think the bird that laid them was my H&N Nick Brown as she was squatting near the site. She is one of those hens that's bred to be a hardcore egg layer. Could it just be that she is still very young (she's about 20 weeks old) and everything is still maturing? I mix oyster shell in with their layers pellets and sometimes they eat the whole lot, sometimes they leave it, but it is always on offer. Is there anything else I should be feeding them or will this iron itself out? Also, could the same bird have laid both the shell-less eggs in the flower bed yesterday, or is it more likely one of the others also laid one of them?

The Nick Brown promptly scoffed one of the eggs. This won't harm her, will it?!

And finally - with their drinking water, is it ok to fill it up out of the water butt, or should I use tap water from indoors?

Crazy birds, these chicken things.

Thanks for your advice.

Emma

My chickens only have 'outdoor' water either rain or from the pond, never tap (we're metered), so water from the butt - rainwater I presume, is fine.

The shell less eggs can occur as a new chicken goes into lay, and also to regular laying chickens on occasion.

If you ever have the chance to see inside a chicken, you will see that they carry about 5 to 6 eggs in various stages internally every day, but sometimes, these eggs can pass through the system a little quickly, and as the shell is the last stage, sometimes they can pop out before fully formed, this should only happen a couple of times for a newbie and then she should settle down.

It sounds as they have plenty of grits in their diet - but chucking in crushed egg shells after you have used the contents also acts as a ready supply of calcium for them.

And they can eat their own eggs (shells or not) it won't hurt them. But it is not to be encouraged as they can develop a taste for eggs and you find they are having plenty and you are getting none!

Thanks for that. She had a day off from laying today (only fair after the weekend's activities) so I'll see how the next one comes out. Her poor little body has gone a bit crazy in the last week. She went from laying a little egg every day to suddenly laying an enormous one every day (3 double yolkers so far...), and then seemingly 2 shell-less ones on the same day.

With the water butt, do you think it's ok that I lob my vegetable water in there?! Whenever I boil/steam veggies or boil eggs, I feel terrible just throwing the water down the sink afterwards so I always take it outside and lob it in the water butt to top it up a bit. It's only ever veg water, nothing starchy, so do you think it is ok for them to drink this, or will some strange leftover minerals/organisms/not sure what go mouldy and do something terrible to them?

our new layers laid a couple of rubber eggs... nothing similar since.

grit does nto chagne the egg shell - they eat grit to keep int their crop to grind up the food, and if you hens get to free range, they wil have access to more than enough grit.

oyster shell on the other hand, contains teh calcium they need to make the shells. there should be enough in teh layers pellets, but oystershell is very cheap, so why not offer it too. we jsut have it on a bowl with drainage holes and they help themselves.

hens often lay a soft egg when they come into lay (either for their first time or after a break). eating the gg wont do her any harm, but its not to be encouraged as you dont want them to get into the habbit of eating eggs ! if she consistantly lays soft eggs, there is something wrong.

To be honest I would not throw the veggie water into the water butt, because if the weather does ever improve it may encourage bacterial growth, however, that's not to say that you can't give it to the chucks to drink because there is nothing wrong with that either - just use a separate container.

And if you boil spuds etc, then a handy tip - if you have a steamer - throw your spuds into the water to boil as normal, throw the peelings into the steamer (or vice versa!) and you will cook the peelings as well, and then give those to your chickens - they will love them.

Hmmm, good thinking about the veg water. It gets pretty hot in those water butts when it's sunny so there could be all sorts mutating and growing in there! Will try the potato tip, too.

Her eggs were back to normal yesterday, so I'm hoping it was just a blip.