Chicken egg shells more fragile in winter?

Posted by louisa on Wednesday 24 November 2010 in chickens | 1 comment

Just a passing observation – both yesterday and today, when I’ve collected the eggs from the girls, I’ve managed to crack one of the shells on the way back up to the house.

I’m not sure what happened yesterday but today, the crack happened when two eggs bumped into each other – not too heavily, just a little jostling-together-in-my-pouch bump. I’m sure they will have bumped together that heavily all year but it’s only now that we’re seeing cracking. The shells aren’t soft and squishy; they’re hard shell but just seem a little more fragile than normal.

Anyone else seeing anything similar?

I don’t think it’s a calcium deficiency per se as they’re getting good quantities of balanced layers pellets, have access to plenty of shell in the grit store, and have also had “poultry spice” mineral supplement in their food this week.

I know human bodies need Vitamin D to help absorb calcium – so maybe it’s the same for them and the short days are reducing their uptake.

It’s not a big problem – in fact, Lily will be very happy about it because she’ll get it if we don’t think we’ll use it today – just an observation. Would love to hear other chickeneers thoughts on this…