Carol's Chickens

Gold has now gone broody but yesterday Red came back into lay after a two week break. Gold has laid eight eggs in two weeks since her last broody spell. It seems this year that every time a girl comes back into lay another one goes broody. This means we have stayed with three out of eight girls laying.

Snow laid her egg two days after the soft shelled one. It was small, hard shelled and with only a very slight wobble on the shell. It is her most normal looking egg since things changed with her egg laying so that’s encouraging.

Red’s egg is on the left, Snow’s egg is in the middle and Storm’s egg is on the right. Snow’s egg is the most normal it’s been for ages.

Meanwhile Mango and Cloud are still broody after two weeks. They have been exhibiting the mother and chick behaviour. Since the first few days of going broody Mango has been sitting on top of Cloud.

This may look quite cute but it drives me nuts. I think it makes them take longer to come out of it while they are behaving like this. It also means the broody crate wouldn’t work unless I just put one of them in it.

It is always this way round with Mango on top. At bedtime I have been splitting them up so that they can’t stay like this overnight. I now put one of them on the back perch and one on the side perch.

It’s been driving me crazy but I think Mango is just beginning to come out of it as when I lift them out she stays out in the run a bit longer than Cloud. I hope this means Cloud will soon follow and they will come out of it soon.

My strategy has been to lift them out every time I go in the run and then when the laying girls have laid I close the nest boxes and the chicken shed. It amazes me how even when they have been out all afternoon as soon as I open up they are straight back in.

I have also been closing the nest boxes before bedtime. This has made Mango and Cloud settle together on top of the nest box rather than inside. I am hopeful that they will come out of this soon. Never a dull moment in our chicken run!

Yesterday Snow laid a hard shelled egg inside a soft shelled egg for the second time but she looked fine. Today she had the humped posture that indicates struggling with egg laying. As she had laid yesterday morning I expected another weird egg tomorrow morning.

By late afternoon Snow looked back to her normal self again. I checked the nest boxes and Snow had laid again. This time it was normal sized but soft shelled. It also had what looked like a mini bit of soft shell with it.

When I opened the soft shell it had a normal egg inside.

It seems as if Snow is laying too many eggs in quick succession. The trouble is there is no way either she or we can slow it down. I am really worried that this will eventually be her down fall but there is nothing that can be done about it.

I wish Snow would take a break but nature will take it’s course and all we can do is hope that she will continue to get her eggs laid.

The annoying thing is, that when Snow started laying she laid tiny torpedo shaped eggs. I was really pleased because I thought this meant she wouldn’t have egg laying problems. Something has obviously changed internally. It’s very frustrating. We can only keep our fingers crossed for her.

Since Snow laid her weird eggs she has laid eight wobbly shaped eggs, one every other day. Yesterday was the day she should have laid her next egg. She spent a couple of hours in a nest box then came out without laying. I wondered if this meant another weird egg was on the way.

This morning there was another weird egg under her roost spot. Snow looked fine and this time hadn’t looked poorly before laying it.

Again it was huge, the size of Red’s egg. I could feel the hard shelled egg inside. It also had a little tail attached to the bottom.

I don’t know why this is happening and I haven’t been able to find any answers on google. Every video I have seen on You Tube shows the outside egg with a yolk so I wonder why Snow’s outside egg has no yolk. The whole thing is a mystery and not something I have come across before.

I worry that there must be something wrong inside for this to be happening but I am relieved that so far Snow is getting the eggs laid. It is fortunate that the outer shell is soft and flexible because being so large it could otherwise get stuck or cause a prolapse.

I can only hope that Snow keeps getting her eggs laid without it causing her any ill effect. It is a worry that sometime in the future it may go wrong for her.

In other news Storm came back into lay after a break of two and a half weeks and has now laid two eggs.

Red came out of her broody spell after a week. Mango and Cloud have now been broody for a week so far and show no sign of coming out of it yet.

We have Gold, Storm and Snow currently laying. I scrambled Snow’s inner egg and fed it back to the girls as we didn’t fancy it. I did the same with her last one too.

We do seem to experience the full range of problems with our small flock. I just hope we can keep them healthy despite the set backs.

I can’t remember when we have had so many broodies in quick succession. I wonder if it’s because we have had such good weather earlier in the year than usual.

Mango and Cloud have now gone broody together. They are so in sync with each other that it’s no surprise they have gone broody together. It was if Mango was ready and waited until the next day for Cloud to catch up with her.

This is how it unfolded. The day before yesterday started with Mango.

When I lifted Mango out of the nest box she stayed fluffed up. Her egg was next to Red. Later she moved away and seemed back to normal. Sometimes they spend longer and longer in the nest box until they are properly broody. I suspected she was going to go broody soon.

The next day, which was yesterday, Cloud was in the nest box with Red.

After Cloud had been in the nest box with Red for most of the afternoon I lifted her out. Her egg was next to Red.

Cloud also eventually moved away and carried on as normal. At bedtime I was surprised to find that Mango and Cloud were not sitting on top of the nest box as usual. I checked the nest boxes and there they were side by side sitting in a nest box together. I thought this meant they were definitely broody.

This morning Mango and Cloud were once again together in the nest box and when I lifted the lid Mango fluffed up.

Mango and Cloud are broody along with Red. This means we are now down to just two girls laying, Gold and Snow. Eggs are going to be a bit thin on the ground for a while. I can’t believe with a flock of eight we now have only two girls laying. Sigh!

Edit

When I checked back later Snow was in one nest box and these three girls were together. I thought they looked so cute that I just to add another photo.

It seems to be a constant chain of broody girls at the moment. Red went broody the day after Snow. This is Red’s first time broody so I don’t how long she will be but she seems quite determined. She soon returns to the nest box each time I lift her out. She has laid a total of 66 eggs in six months, two months being at the end of last year and four months this year.

Red is completely docile and when I lift her out and put her in the run she just sits there looking a bit dazed.

Mango laid her egg next to Red. Mango and Cloud seem to like company when they lay their eggs.

Snow appeared to come out of being broody after just one day. She then started spending about half her time in the nest box and half in the run.

Today snow went back to spending all her time in the nest box. My husband suggested perhaps she wanted to lay an egg but I said I thought it was much too soon. However later today when I checked on them Snow and Red were together in a nest box. The next minute Snow came out and there was a very small wobbly egg.

This is very odd as Snow has only missed two days laying as she laid her last egg on her first broody day. She is still making the boc boc sound of a broody girl. I’m not sure quite what is going on with her.

I also suddenly realised that we hadn’t had an egg from Storm for a while. I checked my egg records and she hasn’t laid for two weeks. She has laid 13 eggs in four weeks so far this year. As she hasn’t gone broody I’m not sure if she is done already or just taking a break.

Storm is in her fourth year of laying. She laid 55 eggs in her first year, 69 eggs in her second year and 68 eggs in her third year.

This means that when I recently said we were down to four girls laying it was in actual fact three but if Snow continues to lay it will be four again. It all keeps changing so fast. We will have to wait and see how Snow goes on. It’s all very odd.

It always seems to be a case of one girl back in lay another out of lay. The day after Gold came back in lay Snow went broody so we are now back to four girls laying.

I am happy to leave her broody as after her recent weird eggs I think a break from laying will be good for her. I will just lift her out for breaks.

While trying to get a photo of her Mango was immediately interested in Snow in the nest box. Snow responded by raising her tail and growling.

Mango’s legs are in the top left of the photo as she is walking around sides of the nest box.

When I next checked Mango was next to Snow and I soon realised she had laid her egg next to her. As always an occupied nest box is the most popular one to lay an egg in. Snow looked rather grumpy about this. A little later Cloud’s egg was also next to Snow.

Later I lifted Snow out for a break and she had some water then some pellets and then returned to the nest box. We seem to constantly have at least one broody girl.

Edit

Later in the day Snow got one last egg laid as they often do when they have just gone broody. It was her her fifth wobbly egg after her two weird ones.

Snow has laid eleven eggs in three weeks since her last broody spell. Last time she took a two week break so even if she only takes two weeks again this time I still think the break will do her good. I have also put some vitamins in the water as it can’t hurt to give all the help I can.

Since Snow laid her weird eggs (an egg inside an egg) on two occasions she has laid four normal eggs. The odd thing is that the shape of her eggs has changed. Snow used to lay small torpedo shaped eggs. Her eggs are now oval shaped but they are slightly wobbly in shape. They have a slight groove around them.

It’s difficult to see in a photo but they are not quite smooth in shape.

I am glad that Snow is back to getting hard shelled eggs laid one at a time. I do wonder though, what has changed to cause this. I just hope she doesn’t have any further problems with her egg laying.

Gold went broody eight days ago and Storm followed seven days ago. Gold snapped out of it after just one day. Storm came out of it after five days. Today Gold came back into lay after a week’s break. I am expecting Storm to lay again in another week’s time.

This means we are back to five girls laying again for now. The girls are still keeping us in plenty of eggs so we are happy with that.

Snow last laid a small soft shelled egg inside another small soft shelled egg and then two days later a normal hard shelled egg inside a huge soft shelled egg. Today I knew she would lay again as she lays every two days but her posture looked normal.

When she settled in the nest box I really hoped this time she would lay a normal egg. Snow seemed to be in the nest box for quite a long time. When she came out I went to check on her egg almost holding my breath. Her egg was normal sized and had a hard shell. We were so relieved.

The huge soft shelled egg with the normal hard shelled egg inside was bigger than Red’s egg. Today Snow’s egg is much smaller than Red’s egg which is normal.

I really hope this whole thing was just a blip and she will remain laying normal eggs from now on. It is so good seeing her looking back to normal again.

Two days after Snow’s weird egg she once again had the awful posture that meant she was struggling again with an egg coming.

Soon after this Snow went in the nest box. All the laying girls had by this time laid their eggs. Next time I checked Snow was back out in the run. In the nest box was a huge egg. When I picked it up it was soft but I could feel a hard shelled egg inside it.

Red lays the biggest egg of all our girls and Snow’s was even bigger.

The outer egg again had no proper yolk just a strange bit of something and a lot of white. Inside the inner egg was a normal egg.

I immediately changed the water back to plain water. It’s obviously not a lack of calcium problem but just not enough calcium to make two egg shells at once.

If the outer shell had been hard Snow would have been in real trouble. It would probably either have got stuck or caused a prolapse. It’s flexibility was probably what enabled her to pass it.

I have seen on you tube people cracking an egg with another egg inside so I set about researching this. It is called counter-peristalsis contraction. A formed egg travels backward and becomes embedded inside a second egg in development.

It is supposed to be rare – one in one hundred thousand. Why does it have to happen to us!

I watched videos of eggs being cracked. They were all from standard sized birds and were really large. Most were a hard shelled egg inside another hard shelled egg. One was a soft shelled egg inside a hard shelled egg. I didn’t find any that were a hard shelled egg inside a soft shelled egg. The other difference was that all of them had a yolk in both eggs.

This worries me as I wonder where the yolk has gone. There was no information on why this happens or how to stop it happening. Snow also has a slightly mucky bottom which is never a good sign.

Snow usually lays every other day and she has still been laying every other day. This means she has been producing an extra egg on the days in between and then laying both on the second day. This would explain why she had sat in the nest box on the in between days but not laid.

This is extremely worrying. If she continues to do this I think we could lose her. I can’t understand why this is happening when she was laying normally last year and this year until now and I have no idea what can be done to help her.

This happened yesterday and today Snow sat in the nest box again. I was hoping she would get a single egg laid but once more she came out of the nest box without laying.

That means we will have to wait until tomorrow to see what happens next. At the moment she looks okay though. We can only keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Yesterday we were worried about Snow. She had the posture we have seen many times before. A humped shape to her back and tail down whereas she usually has her tail straight up. We recognise this as having a problem getting an egg laid.

Snowflake, Snow’s predecessor laid big eggs for her size and when coming in to lay on her second year couldn’t get her egg laid and we lost her. I had always been thankful that Snow laid tiny torpedo shaped eggs which meant that it was unlikely she would suffer the same fate so this was rather worrying. I wondered if she had produced a bigger egg and was struggling to lay it.

At bedtime I perched Snow in the chicken shed and she stayed perched. I hoped that in the morning there would be an egg under her roost spot. In the morning Snow was back to her usual self.

When I looked in the chicken shed sure enough there was something under Snow’s roost spot. It wasn’t a larger egg after all, it was if anything even smaller than her usual eggs but it was soft shelled.

This is unusual because up to now even the tiniest eggs have had a yolk. It is very odd and not something we have come across before.

The second soft shell was as thick and tough as the outer one so not the membrane. Also for two days before this Snow had sat in the nest box but come out without laying. I hope this is just a blip and next time she will be back to normal.

Luckily I have some liquid calcium that can be added to the water. This product wasn’t available when we have had problems with soft shelled eggs in the past. Pippinchick recommended it and sold me some last time I had chickens from them.

I have added it to the water straight away in the hope that by the time Snow lays again she will have absorbed some extra calcium.

In other news Gold has gone broody again already. This seems very soon to be broody again but she has been laying her eggs in quick succession. She laid seven eggs in ten days, laying sometimes two days in a row and sometimes three days in a row. She only took a one week break last time so I am hoping it will be the same this time.