Soft shelled eggs

I've (touch wood!) never had a problem with red mite, don't really know why, unless it's the kind of timber the house is made from. It's kiln dried, pressure treated stuff imported by a local firm. The timber weighs a ton and is hard as rock, and lasts a lifetime. I painted the outside with stuff this year, more for appearance sake but it doesn't actually need preserving treatment. But, belt & braces style, I also use diatom in the house and when I clean I use a steam cleaner and blast everywhere with high pressure steam. It probably also helps that there are two windows in the house? So it's quite bright in there, between the windows and the pophole open during the day.
 
I'm fairly sure our red mite dynasty arrived in a batch of bark chippings a couple of years ago and have been around to some degree ever since.
 
Hi everybody,
I hope to ger our new girls later this week. We are looking forward to having hens in the garden again. Marigold suggested getting Red Spot to put in their water. That arrived last week, but the doses are in metric which I'm not very good at!! The dosage is 1ml in a litre of water. How much is 1ml in old money? I've also got some stalosan to put on the ground as well. I can measure that OK but I'm lost with the 1ml bit. I normaly put about 3 litres in the water bowl for the hens if that's any help.
 
The plastic spoons you sometimes get with medicine (or ask your pharmacy for one) are 5 mls - about a teaspoonful. Teaspoons vary a lot in size which is why the plastic spoon was introduced. So if you put a generous half a teaspoon in 3 litres of water that should be about right.
 
EWROBERTS41 said:
Hi everybody,
I hope to ger our new girls later this week. We are looking forward to having hens in the garden again. Marigold suggested getting Red Spot to put in their water. That arrived last week, but the doses are in metric which I'm not very good at!! The dosage is 1ml in a litre of water. How much is 1ml in old money? I've also got some stalosan to put on the ground as well. I can measure that OK but I'm lost with the 1ml bit. I normaly put about 3 litres in the water bowl for the hens if that's any help.
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Stalosan is a dry disinfectant, designed for use inside a house, not in the run. It it not an insecticide so will be no use against red mite. To sanitise your run if it has been constantly used by poultry for a long time then applying lime would be better, as it kills worm eggs in the soil, but you would then need to keep the hens off it for 3 months.
 
Hello again,

We got our new girls yesterday. 2 what the breeder said was called Brown Nick 2 White Star leghorns and 2 Bevans Nera (no doubt they are known by other names. When we got them home we left them in the inner run of the coop when they promptly scuttled inside and didn't come out for a couple of hours but thats only to be expected as it was all strange to them. There again when I picked them up they were all kept in the dark in a big shed so I wonder if being in daylight was strange to them. I opened all the doors in the coop today so that they could get used to their new surroundings and in the main they are better. I visit them quite often so that they get used to me and that seems to work. I gave them layers pellets when they arrived but they didn't appear very interested, so I wonder if they have been fed something different although thats not very likely I would have thought. I did sprinkle some mixed corn in the run mainly to get them to come out into the run and that seemed to go down ok. I intend to keep them in the inner run for a few more days until they get used to everything. I had a message from RichmondHens to say that Stalosan is designed for used inside the house not in the run. Marigold mentioned Salosan. Are they two different products? Very confusing!!
 
Can you post some pictures? Always good to see pics of new chickens (or any chickens) posted.
I do tend to give mine mash based recipes that they like and then when its plain old pellets they show no interest for the day. Very soon, though, if its all that's on offer they get on with it.
Like when worming - nothing but medicated pellets for a week girls - awwww! - 'fraid so!
It may be that the pellets that they are used to are a different size, or crumble maybe?
Moistening pellets with warm water always seems to make them more tempting, except they cant be left down for days once wet and that can be wasteful if its not just a small amount that's gobbled up.
Stalosan F is for use in the dry - under cover (like an open or closed sided covered run.) I don't think it would do any harm if it got wet but wouldn't be as effective for as long as the rain would leach it away.
 
Hi Rick, Marigold et al
New girls settling in well although the White Stars are as scatty as can be. Will they ever calm down!!! Had a tiny little white egg this morning. I presume thats from one of the white stars. They were sold to me as being 16-17 weeks old, so I would have thought that its a bit early for them to start laying, unless of course they are older than what I was told. I have been trying to get some Diatome on line but everything comes up as Diotome Earth. Is this the right stuff to use or is there something else.? The container that I have got now has just got Diatome on it. When do I start giving them some grit with their food?
 
Diatom is short for Diatomaceous Earth, so diatom earth is the right stuff - unless you prefer Smite, or similar powders which are diatom based plus extras to actually kill redmite and make the powder smell nice.
They must have a pot of grit available at all times now they're on adult food and coming up to lay. As hens don't have teeth, they need grit in their gizzards to grind up their dry food. Just put out a big potful and stack some bricks or something round it to stop them knocking it over, and leave them to take it when they feel the need, don't add it to their feed. Some people feed a mixture of grit and oystershell,but opinions are divided about whether the oyster shell actually does help calcium uptake and thus improve eggshell quality. Good quality layers pellets should provide all the extra calcium a laying hen requires, and I found that they picked out the grit from the mixture and left most of the oystershell. So the last time, I bought this
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282244012401 and it arrived fast, free postage although very heavy, and was just what i wanted.
Yes, Leghorns are like that - I have two, and they both love flying up to a perch right at the top of the run, where the others can't get up to. My youngers one sometimes lays a mini-egg as well. They're called wind eggs, ( or fart eggs if you're more down-to-earth.)
 
Hi Marigold, I like the bit about fart eggs. I have 3 laying now two lwhite stars and one of the others which lays a brown egg. They are all beautifully formed.and the shells are hard.. I had two for breakfast yesterday. but I do hope that they will lay full sized eggs before long!! I put straw mixed with diatome in the egg laying box but they scrape it out so there's only bare wood left but thats up to them. I have also put a potful of grit out for them. So at the present time they are doing well.
 
Glad it is all going well for you, don't worry the eggs will get bigger. I put wood shavings in the laying box and the girls always make a hole and lay on the box floor. Lucky that eggs are robust in nature. Keep us posted
 
Hi bigyetiman,
Still going well. Tried your method of putting wood shavings in the laying box and within a few minutes everything was out and they were laying on the wooden floor so I am going to leave them to do what they want. Getting 5 little eggs now, with one not laying it makes me wonder if they are of different ages, although the breeder told me that they were 16 weeks when I got them. Anyway it doesn't make any difference. She will lay when she is ready.
 
Hi everybody,
I had 6 little eggs yesterday all laid during the day so it looks like all my girls are laying, but last night when I went to shut them up I found another 2 soft shelled eggs in the inner run. Very strange. Has anybody any ideas what is going on?
 
They're still young pullets, going through the equivalent of puberty, and probably their systems are still settling down towards regular egg laying. Odd occurrences are very common at this age, and I expect two of them each produced an egg which was released early, before the full coating mechanism had time to operate. The softies were thus probably the eggs which should have arrived the next day, with solid shells on. Nothing to worry about, will be interesting to see if they now skip a day or just go on laying as usual.
 
Whenever we have had new girls, we have had the same thing on a couple of occasions, things soon settle down to normal. One of our new girls has just laid her 1st egg and didn't we all get to hear about it !
 
Hi Marigold and Bigyetiman,

Thanks for your input. I will not worry so much now that you have explained things. I have had 5 eggs today so far so I would think it was just a blip.
 
Hens have an ovary which resembles a bunch of grapes, with some of the egg cells larger than others, down to the smallest. The biggest one is released when she is preparing to lay, and then the others carry on developing until it's their turn. Possibly your girls released an egg cell before it was properly ready and it passed on down and out, incompletely coated with shell. Then by today things were back to normal, I'm glad to hear!
This article and diagram explains it well https://poultrykeeper.com/reproductive-system-problems/the-reproductive-system-of-a-chicken/
 
Mine always chuck out all the nesting material too! And often, they throw out all the previously laid eggs, or they will decide to move them around from one nest box to another. I don't know how the eggs survive! I have some left over vinyl on the floor of the henhouse (just laid in, so I can take it out and wash it and put diatom underneath) and I might put some in the nest boxes too, when I can get my hands on a bit! It would be softer than the bare wood!
 
Hi Marigold and LadyA,
Back to normal today with 6 eggs. Had one full sized one midweek which I had for breakfast this morning. Turned out to be a double yolker!! Had a look at the article re the reproductive system which I found very informative. I put some straw in the nest boxes on Thursday. They tried to throw it out which they partially managed to do, but most of it stayed in the nestbox and is still there so hopefully this has sorted it out, only time will tell. They have calmed down a lot since I had them, even the White stars are calmer although they still go crazy sometimes and they come to the gate when I go anywhere near the run possibly because they associate me with food.!!
 
EWROBERTS41 said:
Hi Marigold and LadyA,
Back to normal today with 6 eggs. Had one full sized one midweek which I had for breakfast this morning. Turned out to be a double yolker!! Had a look at the article re the reproductive system which I found very informative. I put some straw in the nest boxes on Thursday. They tried to throw it out which they partially managed to do, but most of it stayed in the nestbox and is still there so hopefully this has sorted it out, only time will tell. They have calmed down a lot since I had them, even the White stars are calmer although they still go crazy sometimes and they come to the gate when I go anywhere near the run possibly because they associate me with food.!!
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Yep, mine come running full tilt up their pen as soon as I go out, particularly in the evening, because they know they get a small amount of mixed corn when it's time to go back in the secure run! The way to a hen's heart is definitely through her tummy!
 
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