{"id":346,"date":"2012-07-19T12:12:37","date_gmt":"2012-07-19T16:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/?p=346"},"modified":"2012-07-19T12:12:37","modified_gmt":"2012-07-19T16:12:37","slug":"rubber-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/?p=346","title":{"rendered":"“Rubber Eggs”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Being a chicken keeper is always rewarding and often adventurous as well! \u00a0Seems like everyday I am learning new things and experiencing new things about and with chickens. \u00a0It’s a constant learning experience, even when you think you’ve heard or seen it all.<\/p>\n

Here is my latest adventure and learning experience:<\/p>\n

Last night I noticed that “Grace” my 1 year old Delaware was acting kind of stand offish\/listless. \u00a0She is normally my shadow, she comes running to greet me the second she hears the doorwall open and my footsteps on the deck. \u00a0She’s always the one under my feet waiting, full of curiosity to see what kind of treat I may have for her, but not last night. \u00a0She was otherwise normal. \u00a0No sneezing or wheezing, no signs of injury or sickness at all! \u00a0What could be wrong with her I wondered. \u00a0After a few minutes of close observations and examinations I concluded she must be egg bound. \u00a0I’ve seen this before with one of my other hens when she first started laying. \u00a0So I began treatment. \u00a0I brought her into the house, carefully carrying her as not to break the egg stuck inside her and gave her a warm bath for 20 minutes. \u00a0She really didn’t mind the bath at all, she even laid in it willingly. \u00a0If you own chickens you know they don’t particularly like water for any reason other than drinking. \u00a0After 20 minutes I carefully carried her back out to the run and put her in a dog crate to give her her privacy and let her rest. \u00a020 minutes later I went back out to check on her and found this (see picture) a “rubber egg!” \u00a0Sure enough, she was egg bound! \u00a0“Rubber eggs” \u00a0are called this because they actually feel kind of like rubber. \u00a0They have a very soft shell. \u00a0So why did this happen to my already established laying hen? \u00a0Could be a couple things. \u00a0More times than not when chickens eggs are soft shelled it’s for 1 of 2 reasons. \u00a01 being that the chicken can be a new layer and her system is still adjusting to the job of egg production and laying. \u00a0OR it could be because she has a calcium deficiency. \u00a0To prevent this, you should always offer your girls free choice crushed oyster shell, which I always have out for them, but sometimes there will be 1 stubborn\/picky girl who won’t eat it. \u00a0This appears to be the issue with “Grace.” \u00a0However, she is a large breed chicken and doesn’t seem to tolerate the heat well and it has been blazing hot here lately with temps in the high 90’s even up to 102 degrees. \u00a0If you know chickens, you know that they can actually stop laying when the temps rise that high. \u00a0I think “Grace’s” condition is contributed to the heat and the stress she was under being so over heated despite my efforts to keep her cool and comfortable. \u00a0Since she can’t speak to me, I’ll never really know.<\/p>\n

If you have a hen who won’t eat the oyster shell, another alternative would be to offer crushed egg shells. \u00a0I simply save my egg shells, peel out the internal membrane, let dry out for a few days then put in the microwave for a couple minutes to kill any bacteria. \u00a0I then put the shells in a coffee grinder and offer it free choice to the girls. \u00a0Another method you could use is liquid calcium added to their water which I had never heard of before until I asked another fellow chicken keeper (https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Egg.Carton.Labels.by.ADozenGirlz) if she thought there could be more than 1 egg stuck, because even though “Grace” laid her rubber egg, she was still acting like she had another still stuck, so she is still in isolation until she lays another egg or starts acting like herself again. \u00a0I will keep you updated on her situation.<\/p>\n

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“Rubber Egg” (soft shelled egg)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Being a chicken keeper is always rewarding and often adventurous as well! \u00a0Seems like everyday I am learning new things and experiencing new things about and with chickens. \u00a0It’s a constant learning experience, even when you think you’ve heard or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2jrxr-5A","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}