Poultry farming can be called a fascinating and profitable enterprise, while for the inexperienced owner of a private farmstead there is a certain deceit. Everything seems very simple: you need to buy chickens, feed, drink, and that's it - fresh and healthy eggs in a huge amount are guaranteed. In practice, many questions arise.
Why is the bird inactive? Why does egg production fall, is there a bite? Why do chickens lay eggs without shells? It should be understood that any deviation from the norm must be regarded as a signal, the chicken cannot come up and tell the owner what exactly does not suit her. Therefore, the owner’s attentiveness and an adequate reaction with a quick correction of the situation will be the key to the success and effectiveness of a private farmstead.
Evaluation of the quality of eggs
A high-quality chicken egg should be of the correct form, with an even and moderately strong shell without tubercles and depressions. Contrary to popular belief, the color of the shell and the brightness of the yolk has nothing to do with quality, it all depends on the breed of the bird and on the saturation of the diet with carotenoids, which just tint the yolk in saturated colors.
But the very state of the yolk, protein and shell often indicates the health of the bird. If shell-free chicken eggs are found in the house, this clearly indicates an unfavorable situation, and it is necessary to solve it as soon as possible. Unlike minor deviations, such as small or two-yolk eggs, this is an alarming sign.
Why do chickens lay eggs without shells?
If an egg with an inferior shell or without it appeared once, and then again everything is in order, this can be considered an accident. Perhaps this is a malfunction in the body of the hen, which arose for non-essential reasons and leveled off by itself. However, if soft eggs regularly appear in the chicken coop, this can be considered a system and measures must be taken.
The most harmless and easily correctable option is diet errors. Chickens, as a rule, signal a lack of calcium and trace elements in food - they begin to peck their own eggs, as they instinctively seek to make up for the deficiency. An attentive host will adjust the diet even at the stage of cleaving, not leading to the appearance of eggs without shells. However, such flawed egg production may indicate diseases, genetic disorders, as well as severe stress.
Private Chicken Diet
If we are talking about primitive poultry farming, when the owner does not ask questions about the correct diet, the number of birds is minimal, it feeds on food waste from the owners table. The maximum that the hosts offer is periodic feeding of grain. If the chicken laid an egg without shell, this is corrected by adding chalk, shell, crushed eggshell to the feed .
At a certain stage, when it’s not “five chickens and a cockerel”, but at least two or three dozen well-developed birds, it becomes easier and more profitable to keep the bird on compound feed. In this case, there is no need for additives, and waste from the kitchen is more of an option for feeding. If problems persist while feeding the birds with specialized compound feed for laying hens, then this indicates a disease. Depending on the number of affected birds, it is worth calling a veterinarian or updating the poultry stock by selective culling.
"The chicken walks by will": why is this an argument?
When buying domestic eggs, you can often hear as a positive factor that "the chicken walks by will." For buyers, this acts as an argument in favor of buying just such eggs. And there is some truth in this, albeit insignificant.
In some cases, thinking about how to feed laying hens at home is simply inexpedient, they only treat the bird with grain so that it returns to the chicken coop. At the same time, the livestock is on free pasture, the diversity of the diet of the bird in this case is simply amazing. There should not be a shell problem with this approach, because chickens get calcium by pecking snails, and nutritional value with free grazing in nature is beyond doubt.
However, this is possible in extremely rare cases - chickens can be stolen, there are always predators who do not mind eating delicate meat. Free-range domestic chicken is, of course, an argument: the eggs will be tasty and healthy. Another question is that in the vast majority of cases this is a small seller’s lie.
Ready-made feed or natural feed?
At a certain stage in the formation of a large private household, this issue becomes rhetorical. Natural feeds are good, but sooner or later the owner will begin to choke on the amount of work, wondering why the hens lay eggs without shells or, worse, fall on their feet. It’s easier and more logical to transfer the house to a ready-made balanced feed enriched with calcium, potassium, phosphorus and the necessary trace elements. Compound feed is more expensive only in terms of bare numbers, but at the same time it saves time, the bird is less sick, egg production is optimized, the mortality of young animals is significantly reduced. If this is an ordinary chicken coop, where several chickens live, then you can do it with improvised means.
How to make a complete diet for several layers?
For an ordinary family that does not plan to sell eggs, a modest chicken coop is quite enough, up to a dozen inmates. In this case, the question of how to feed laying hens at home often comes into contact with such a concept as non-waste production. Of course, in the diet of birds there should be whole grains, but food waste from the kitchen can also be a valuable addition to chicken dinner. As a mineral and vitamin supplement, you can buy a quality premix, which is, in fact, a ready-made complex of biologically active substances that is used in the production of animal feed.
In the absence of premixes, it is worth adding to the diet of laying hens: crushed egg shells, cottage cheese, meat and bone meal, chalk, shell rock. Thanks to this, the eggs will be of good quality, and the bird's health will improve significantly. It is important to understand that with a deficiency of calcium and trace elements, the bones of the bird first suffer, deficient substances for the shell come from the bones. That is, regularly appearing soft eggs are an alarm, in the chicken body there are already serious problems.
Seasonal Diet Changes
In a private compound, the diet of the bird undergoes significant changes depending on the season. It is at the end of winter or early spring that eggs without shells appear. What to do in this case and how to avoid such a problem?
The lack of vitamin D is compensated by special additives, fish oil, meat and bone meal can be mixed into the feed. It is extremely important to supply the bird with vitamins, add hay, vegetables to the feed. Hens willingly eat silage, and if you prepare nettles and alfalfa brooms, then in winter it will be a pleasant addition to the diet. On warm, clear days, you will notice that chickens sunbathe in an effort to get vitamin D.
If chickens have the opportunity to walk outside the house, problems with the quality of eggs are less common. Birds instinctively look for the food that is needed at the moment. On a free-range diet, the chicken diet is substantially enriched with protein feed, it eats worms, insects, slugs and snails. An ordinary grape snail is a protein complex in a wrapper made of high-quality calcium, so a walk for a chicken is a kind of gourmet tour, which only benefits her.
Poultry diseases affecting egg quality
In addition to the lack of necessary substances in the feed, various diseases can also have an effect. However, the quality of food here also indirectly affects the result of egg production and product quality. Often the reason why chickens lay eggs without shells becomes helminthiasis, viral diseases, then the whole house suffers, and not selective laying hens. This may be mycoplasmosis, bird flu, infectious bronchitis, other diseases. To determine the reasons, it is recommended to invite a veterinarian, laboratory tests will be required. Often, as a measure against diseases, it is necessary to completely eliminate the livestock, revise sanitary requirements and re-form the chicken coop, taking into account the needs of the bird.
Home Improvement
If all chickens eat the same way, and one or two birds carry defective eggs, then this is a genetic problem, such birds can have a variety of malformations. In the household, it is necessary to regularly rejuvenate the number of laying hens, and if the chickens lay eggs with a soft shell with general well-being, these specimens must be discarded.
Since the peak of egg production in chicken is observed for literally two, maximum three years, regular rejuvenation of the house is necessary in any case. In isolated cases of the appearance of a product with defects, you can not particularly wonder why eggs are unshell, just make the appropriate adjustments to the culling schedule. Treatment with serious material costs may be considered a more humane approach, but do not forget that agriculture is a pragmatic sphere of life, where sentiment is quite expensive in a material sense, and spending money on keeping animals and birds that are not profitable is simply wasteful.