Poor quality eggs - what could be the problem?

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53 Stix

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Hi all! Apologies if this is in the wrong section; I'm interested to hear your thoughts!

Around a year ago I took on my first batch of chickens - a group of six ex. battery hens - which I'm very happy with. They have come a long way since the day we brought them home, and now appear to be in good health and happiness.

However, egg yield and quality is still some way off where I had hoped it would be, and I would very much like to get to the bottom of how/why!

Yield has dropped from 5-6 per day down to 2- (which isn't the end of the world), however what does concern me is that the eggs we do get are noticeably worse in quality/flavour than what I had hoped to achieve. For instance, shell quality varies considerably, sometimes being lumpy/bumpy, sometimes being soft-shelled, yet sometimes being flawless. Some eggs show signs of blood externally, too, which is concerning.

When cooked the eggs have never given the deep/rich flavour that I associate with a free-range egg, and when boiled the outer half of the whites almost always fall away in a powdery-like substance, no-matter how long you spend boiling the egg.

The chix themselves seem bright and happy, with red combs and full feathers. They have around 30sq.m. fenced off as a dedicated run, plus a large garden to range in whenever we are around to monitor them (which is usually most weekday evenings and weekends!)

They are fed a mixed layers mash, plus a corn/pellet mix in the evenings and have access to plenty of grit.

I'd be very interested to hear any thoughts on what I could do to improve the health and happiness for my girls as presumably something is still not quite right for them. All feedback welcome!

Thanks in advance!

-Rob
 
You say the hens are ex battery, which means their best laying days are well behind them, and they will not lay every day as I am sure you know. I have a few "old timers" and a couple of eggs is about the norm for them.Shell quality can deteriorate with age to
Have you wormed the girls as that can affect the quality of the eggs?
You say they have nice combs and feathers so I imagine mites or lice are not a problem, but you could check that no little beasties are lurking on the birds or in the case of mites anywhere in the coop.
Good luck with them and I am sure there are more learned people on the forum who can give you more advice than I can
 
hi 53Stix, and welcome to the Forum. I agree with bigyetiman, if you start with exbatts you will have done a good deed for the birds concerned, and you've obviously given them really good care and living conditions. However, they're exbatts for a reason, which is that, in the 18-24 months they will have spent as battery hens, they will have been subjected to conditions intended to promote intensive laying, including extra lighting all the year round and a highly concentrated diet. They will have been selectively bred to respond to this with an 18-month burst of daily laying, and once their egg production begins to decline, or their eggs start to show irregularities like you describe, the whole shedful is for the chop, unless a kind person like you comes along to rehome some of them. Exbatts usually do lay well for quite a while, because the farmer will 'harvest' them before egg quality overall is too uneven, but they will inevitably slow down sooner than hens who have had more natural lives and been able to follow the normal sequence of an Autumn moult, followed by a period of rest before their next laying season in the following Springtime. Sadly, exbatts are also prone to egg laying troubles such as peritonitis and prolapse, again because of the strain on their systems in earlier life. So I think that you've done really well to have given them such a lovely chance of a healthy life, even if it turns out to be not quite so long and productive as you hoped it might be. They're great characters, aren't they, and I'm sure you enjoy their company. Yes, do make sure you worm them every 6 months with Flubenvet, and keep a lookout for parasites, but otherwise you seem to be doing everything they need. If you've now had them for a year, they're getting to the stage where many hybrid hens do begin to slow down anyway, having laid almost daily and thus used up many or most of the total number of egg cells they were born with - when they're gone, they're gone, and the 'henopause' starts.
Maybe, when in the natural order of things one or two have gone to the Great Chicken Coop in the Sky, you might be ready to think about replacing them with some point of lay pullets from breeds which are longer-lived and will go on producing good quality eggs for more years. My oldest hen, the Boss, is a little Cream Legbar who is 6+ years and still lays a lovely blue egg about 3 times a week. Do let us know how you get on.
 
Not much else you can do for your hens unfortunately. The blood is a burst capillary which can also happen occasionally when a pullet comes into lay. Once they go through their autumn moult they may start to give you a few eggs again or they may wait till spring arrives
 
As long as it isn't just little spots of blood, which can indicate red mite, can't it? But the other thing, the egg white problem. Are you sure that this isn't just the normal way that really fresh eggs are when you cook them? They are always much more difficult to peel, I find, and the whites do tend to break/stick to the shells and come away in little bits!
 
I've always been led to believe that when the shell sticks to the white, the egg is too fresh to boil, never questioned it, because it does happen when the eggs are very freshly laid.

Two of my first hens were hen rescue little oven ready/bald brown girls. I knew they were at the end of their laying days, but I just wanted to give two a life they had never known, Lucky and Chancy repaid me with two eggs overnight on the first night, and laid until they died about a couple of years later. They were darling and my pleasure was watching them grow in confidence, normality and feathers. They were the chattiest, friendliest girls.
 
Hi all, thanks for the thoughtful replies!

Although my girls aren't the best layers, it's the quality of the eggs which was concerning me, as opposed to the quantity. For me the 2-4 (typo in original post!) we are currently getting is fine, but they just never seem to have the deep rich flavour and consistency that I was hoping for.

I was told when I collected them that they would have been no more than 18 months old, which would now put them at around ~30 months at a guess. It's a good point that an intensive first 18 months laying will have adverse affects on later life, but I was hoping that they would be laying for a good while yet... for instance, a neighbor of mine had some ex. batts. which, he says, were great layers until the day they were taken by Mr. Fox at around 12 years of age!!

I am overdue a round of Flubenvet so that's also a good point that I had not considered! I'll update with any changes as-and-when I see them in the coming days/weeks, but in the meantime any further comments are always appreciated.

Thanks again!

-Rob
 
Hi Rob,
Re the taste of eggs - there are some nice eggs at the supermarket these days at the £1.50 to £2 mark for the half doz and, although we have agreed that our eggs are tastier there's not a lot in it to be honest.
Not sure if anyone's mentioned greens (some cabbage and the like) above. That does make a difference.
Its so hard to know exactly what is going on, what's the norm and what to compare with. You seem to have lots of space. Live to 12 then eaten by foxes is a tale worth repeating. 4 to 6 maybe more typical?
 
To be fair Rob, your hens aren't free ranging, so their eggs won't taste like free range eggs, periodic access to the garden isn't the same. Add to that the fact that the quality of whites drops off on ex-batts that age and I just think you are expecting a bit too much or have been misinformed about what to expect. Your neighbour ought to have a nose a mile long if he is spinning yarns like that one about his twelve year old ex-batts.
 
Interesting you say blood externally on the eggs 53Stix. We occasionally get that with hens coming into lay but the most usual reason is smeared red mite from inside the nest box material- worth checking as it would explain a lot of your problems.

30m2 for 6 hens won't give you a sustainable supply of grass and I expect it will be stripped of greenery now. Ours eat huge amounts of grass and it adds to the flavour I believe- certainly makes the yolks yellow without the need for the yolk enhancers which are chemical colourants put in most feed. A good substitute for grass is cabbage which we used to grow (savoy) specifically as a supplement for our chickens' diet. Leaves can be hung in the run to give them a feeding height variation which they need for proper welfare.

A worm burden could explain egg quality issues and a drop in production and that's always a good place to start with any problem, because often a worm burden compounds another minor issue.
 
Hi all!

Re. my neighbour's 12 y/o hens, I must admit it's an egg-ceptional age (forgive the pun)! In either case, don't shoot the messenger, I'm merely reciting what I was told! ;-)

I'm not egg-specting the worlds best eggs (I'm sorry, I can't help myself!) but there is a noticable difference between the free-range eggs I was used to a few years ago (provided by a friend) and those which my girls are producing. Even commercial eggs are noticably better in quality, consistency and taste, which is what leads me to think that something's not quite right yet for my girls.

We check regularly for lice and mites. We have had two instances of them in the past, but both times have managed to bring it all under control quickly with thorough cleaning and sanitation, in addition to the usual maintenance.

Bizarrely, we only ever seem to get one egg per day which is bloody/red, and even that is inconsistent (maybe a couple of days in a row and a couple of days with no signs of problems). The other eggs are all visually clean and free from smears or marks, excluding any shell defects. This leads me to think that one of my girls isn't quite as well as she ought to be, so I need to pay careful attention to find out which one.

After several comments regarding worms I am currently in the middle of a Flubenvet worming-week now, so the girls are being kept in with no additional treats currently. When this is complete they will have the run of the large and grassy garden again for as much time as I can afford them, which is typically around 4-5 hours per day.

I'll keep you all informed if I notice any changes!

Thanks again,

-Rob
 
Thats all you can do really, start by eliminating the obvious easy to treat potential problems. Good luck and keep us posted
 
I have one Leghorn that quite often has a smear of blood on her egg - all my hens are from different breeds so I know that the white egg is hers. She's a superb layer and in good health so I think it's probably that she's laying a big egg in proportion to her small body and perhaps not lubricating very well. So if you're only getting one smeared egg per day, redmite seems unlikely as the cause.
What brand of pellets are you feeding them?
You might also consider adding some Nettex Mineral Powder to their feed - mix up some pellets and maybe some extra corn or other treats and add enough warm water to make a crumbly mash. This mineral powder also contains probiotics, seaweed and other extras to boost shell quality and general health, and it's especially good for middle-aged hens or for hens recovering from a moult.
 
For the first six months I was using Heygates Layers Mash, but moved over to Copdock Mill as I wasn't fond on the sheer quantity of dust in the Heygates.

I've recently purchased 20kg of Heygates Layers Pellets in an effort to see if that improves things, but I don't plan to start them on this until after this weeks worming (during which time they are continuing on the Copdock Mill Layers Mash). A Veterinary Nursing Times article lead me towards the Allen and Page Layers Crumble as a good quality option, which I have also purchased but am again yet to try! (I presume that changing foods regularly isn't good, so I'd be aiming to give them a good few months on whatever food I decide to try next).

In terms of additives and supplements, they have access to mixed oyster shell and have recently been started on a dilution of unrefined apple cider vinegar after reading a feature on this forum.

The only treats the girls get is sweetcorn (on the advise of the charity from which they were provided), and they go absolutely crazy for it! Usually 1/2 a cob between the six of them every few days, on average, plus the occasional handful of tinned sweetcorn if I need to get them back in the run in a hurry.

So all-in-all I have several options in the shed which I could look towards at any time, so I'm interested to hear your thoughts on these!

PS Nettex Mineral Powder on order too! Many thanks!
 
When you have all brown girls, all laying brown eggs, it's very hard to know who's laying which egg! On the rare occasion that I've needed to know, I've used paste food colouring. A little dab, different colour for each hen, on the vent, and a dab of the same colour on the head or back, so you can easily see who's who. The colour gets on to the egg as it's being laid.
 
Hi all,

Not an update I wanted to ever write, but I thought I should say: woke up this morning to one of my girls dead in the house... very saddening.

The chick in question was under the weather the last 24hrs (lethargic and floppy-combed) so I was keeping a close eye on her, but obviously not close enough. Completely at a loss as to what could have caused her to pass away so quickly... no outwards signs of distress or injury.

The other five are bright and loud as per usua; here's hoping that they continue for many years yet!

-Rob
 
Sorry to hear that - but not uncommon with older hens who have laid well for 2-3 years, especially exbatts. Hens have to be very stoic, they try their best to hide any symptoms of illness or weakness because the rest of the flock will often bully a bird that they think is failing and unable to defend herself. Consequently, even keepers like yourself, who are observant of their hens and concerned for their welfare, can miss early signs of illness. In your case, i think once an older hen starts becoming lethargic and with a floppy comb, the outcome is not surprising. So long as the others aren't bullying her, you can just leave her in peace, or alternatively put her in a quiet, safe place on her own to see how she gets on. Probably it was good that she died quite fast and peacefully, as she may have been in pain if she had some kind of common abdominal infection such as peritonitis. At least she saved you the need to maker a difficult decision. If, with a bit more experience, you are more confident about making a diagnosis, you might want to think about culling her, or taking her to the vet to be checked over and then PTS, which is what I do with mine when needed.
Hens are not very long-lived pets at the best of times, and I think yours are coming up to the stage where, even with the best care you can give them, their 'borrowed time' is, sadly, on the horizon. They do leave a hole in your heart, though, when they go.
 
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