Soft Shelled Eggs

            This one isn’t a disease, but it is something I’ve run into several times during my chicken keeping adventure.  Strictly speaking, and in a lot of cases, it’s no big deal.  There are a myriad reasons chickens will have soft shells.  Kind of like you and I getting a sharp pain or pinch out of nowhere.  Oh there’s a “reason” for it, but you never figure it out and it never happens again or happens so infrequently you’re surprised each time.  Possibly not the best analogy, but the only one I could come up with right now.  Grin… 

            I’ve come across soft shell eggs in two different forms.  The first, is simply eggs with thin shells.  They don’t look any different than other eggs, but when you go to pick them up, they have a totally different “feel”, in that you just know the shell isn’t as hard as the rest and when put in the basket with the others, it cracks.  Or when I go to crack it in the kitchen, it pretty much squashes, getting egg shell in whatever I’m trying to crack the egg into.  The second way is to find an egg that looks nearly transparent and is squishy and wiggly.  They almost feel like a jello egg (if you’re old enough to remember jello wigglers or when jello came out with the molds to use knox gelatin and make Easter Eggs from jello).  These are a bit fun to play with, so long as you don’t mind the possibility that you’ll break it, creating a big mess and wasting the egg. 

            So, what are some of the causes of these conditions?  I’ll list them in order of how I approached the cause.  Numbers 1 and 2 are the only conditions I’ve had to face in the soft shell scenarios.  I’ve been able to reverse the thin shells in as few as a couple of days by addressing number 2 quickly.  Lord willing, I’ll never address the rest of the issues.

1.  Hot days.  When the weather turns really hot, chickens naturally slow the egg making process.  It takes energy to create eggs and energy creates heat, so the obvious answer is to not create any extra heat.  Also, chickens slow their food intake in the extreme heat (whatever extreme is to them in their environment – here, it is when it gets to and stays 95 or so for several days in a row; in your area, it could be 85 and over). 

2.  Calcium Deficiency.  Calcium, obviously, is needed to create eggs.  Remember, as well, calcium is needed to maintain a healthy body.  So, chickens need a bit more calcium to maintain health and egg production.  It only stands to reason if they only have enough for one or the other, something has to give and like humans, their body will protect itself first.

3.  Overall Protein/Mineral/Vitamin Deficiency.  Chickens need good levels of all of these.  If your chickens are free range and have access to lots of good weeds, grass and bugs, they’re most likely getting everything they need.  Unless you see an issue, leave it alone.  However, if you feed a commercial feed or mix your own (which is what I usually do) then you may need to take a look at your feed.  Is it missing something?  Could you supplement with something natural?  There are a lot of benefits to weeding your garden aside from helping the plants you want to grow have more space and nutrients - - weeded gardens produce weeds that need to be discarded and chickens LOVE weeds!  When mine were penned, I picked weeds regularly for them.  I dumped all my weeds in their pen.  Heck, in the winter, I used to pick weeds directly from the yard to give to them.  It was great for them and the lawn come springtime.  Avoid feeding spinach, chard and citrus.  All three interfere with calcium absorption in hens.  Just leave them off the chickens’ menus.  Easier to not feed them these than to worry about doing so and whether Otter loves oranges and ran off with a bigger portion that she should have.  J  The following weeds/herbs are particularly high in calcium, so consider adding these to the menu instead:  alfalfa, burdock root, chamomile, chickweed, clover, dandelion greens, horsetail, lambs quarter, mustard greens, nettle, parsley, peppermint, raspberry leaf, rose hips and watercress.

4.  Certain Breeds/Ages are More Prone than others.  Older hybrids (Sex Links, Comets, etc) and older birds are more prone to soft/thin shelled eggs simply because the hybrids are bred to optimize their production quicker (thus using up their reserves quickly) and the older birds simply start getting “old” (like older humans can begin breaking bones as they age).
5.  Stress.  Enough said?  Bullying, barking dogs, threats regularly (meaning a hawk or some other predator is repeatedly trying to get to them and more can cause any number of adverse effects on hens with the first response being withholding those jewels from the nest and soft/thin shelled eggs next.