Its Q & A Time

Some Great questions lately from my Group

Q

We Have a few free Range hens. One Is Laying soft-shelled eggs; the egg yolk and egg white are in the nesting box, separate from the shell. How can we cure this problem!

A

Soft shelled eggs can be a result of faulty calcium deposition through the lack o in the diet, or because of an imbalance of calcium and phosphorous in the diet.

A more likely cause when it suddenly starts happening is an infection, either a viral disease like infectious Bronchitis or egg drop syndrome or a more localized infection in the shell gland its self.

I hope by now that the problem has righted itself. Egg Drop Syndrome has no outward symptoms in the bird but can affect egg quality for several weeks.

Q

We have a good supply of barley from a neighbor and were wondering if it is OK to feed wheat to our hens rather then barley and they seem to like it! Also, can oats be feed successfully?

A

Layer hens need at least 16 – 18 % protein in their diet, so full grain diets are not good as they do not have enough protein content on their own. You would need to feed whole grains in conjunction with either a commercial feed or with additional high protein feeds like meats, peas, milk etc.

Any more questions please send them in we can all learn from them