Watery albumen in pullet's eggs

[Icemaiden]

One of my girls is laying eggs with watery albumen. She's less than a year old & the albumen is watery even in day old eggs, so they don't poach properly.
She seems to be fine in herself & is still eating & laying well.
Any ideas please? 19

 

[dinosaw]

If not age of bird, age of egg or disease then the next most common causes of watery whites in eggs are the temperature and humidity they have been stored at, whether they have been roughly handled, ammonia levels in the coop, fungal toxins, ph level of drinking water, certain proteins in feed.., but that would be affecting all of your birds so I would imagine it is a genetic disposition of that particular bird. I have seen people say on other forums that it is a genetic factor affecting individual birds that sometimes resets on the moult, this was certainly the case for me with a bird that couldn't form shells.

 

[Marigold]

You could try a course of Nettex mineral powder, which is about the only supplement I ever give to my hens. Its rich in a combination of minerals and vitamins, includes seaweed and is probiotic. If she has some kind of problem with metabolising whatever she needs for making good whites, maybe this might help. At any rate, its a good extra for them when they're all laying like mad.

 

[chrismahon]

A book I bought years ago, but neglected to read, is Organic Poultry by Katie Thear. On my UK in-flight reading list for today I have already skimmed through it and there are some 'pearls of wisdom' that I should have discovered a long time ago.

According to a 2001 Queensland study the temperature of the drinking water is an optimum of just 5 degrees centigrade. Above that and the quality of the eggs suffers. So it may be something as simple as overly-warm drinking water Icemaiden?

 

[Marigold]

Except that would be the same for all of them, wouldn't it, and anyway we haven't had any hot weather here in the UK yet!