![]() ![]() The shell of an egg is mainly made of calcium carbonate and if the hen doesn’t have enough calcium in her diet she cannot form a good shell. But they can have too much of a good thing and if they fill up on treats they won’t be able to eat their ‘proper’ food and so suffer dietary deficiencies. They will just keep eating and eating them. Well meaning keepers sometimes give their hens more treats than are good for them. Home keepers are the ones who tend to have the problem as it’s usually due to diet.Ĭhickens are a little like children who, given the chance, will try and live on chocolates and ice cream. Commercial keepers almost invariably feed prepared compounds such as layers pellet which prevents the problem appearing. Shell quality is a factor in selection when they’re bred. Thin eggshells are uncommon with commercial hen strains. There is little you can do about that apart from improving the hen’s diet as below to help her increase the egg thickness. ![]() Occasionally a strain of birds or an individual bird is just predisposed to laying thin shelled eggs. Thin eggshells are typically misshapen and have small holes in them which makes them unsaleable and they cannot be safely stored. ![]() This can be a very hard habit to break them of. Once the hens have a taste for eggs and know they’re edible they may well start deliberately breaking and eating their eggs. If the thin shelled egg breaks whilst actually being laid there is a chance of the remnants being naturally expelled or removed by the keeper but often not.Ī broken egg in the nestbox will attract the other hens who will eat it in short order. More often than not, an egg breaking prior to being laid will result in the death of the hen. Of course, thin eggshells are a concern as the egg will easily break in transit from coop to kitchen but more concerning is when an egg breaks before being laid inside the hen. Thin eggshells are a fairly common problem and can be more serious than you might think. ![]()
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