I feed oyster shell that is crushed that I bought from Southern States. That should give them the calcium they need for egg shells. Good Luck

Are your hens young and just starting to lay? I had some of those "eggs" when my flock just started laying. They were just laying in the oddest places but it only happened a few times.

I keep a container of free choice oyster shell too that should definitely help.

We also had that happen when the hens first started laying. I haven't seen it since that first couple of months.

I rarely see this in my birds but it does happen. The danger is a soft egg will not pass and become lodged/broken inside the hen; not often. It occurs mostly at start of lay but can occur any time. There is sufficient Ca in quality layer feeds but its ok to have a supplement in seperate containers in the coop(for mature fowl only). Another problem can be these soft shell eggs will be discovered and eaten by others and they will develop a taste for eggs and become egg eaters, keep them picked up as seen.

Please tell us if these hens are new layers. Also, I really wouldn't worry about egg eating. I think that problem is way over-blown. In nature, a hen/bird will eat a cracked or damaged egg to get it out of the nest before a predator finds it and knows where the nest is. We free-range our chickens. We give them back their eggs and shells regularly to give a good protein boost over the winter since we don't really have a market for our eggs right now. (We understood the hens would cut down or stop laying in cold weather and that hasn't happened at all!)

Listen to others, but your own experiences are the best teachers.

I have heard that "rubber eggs" can be caused by a problem in the hen's reproductive system and extra calcium may do no good. I'd be inclined - unless the hen is new to laying and just 'working the kinks out' - to crate the bird for a number of days and see if all her eggs are without proper shells. Unless she is a pet, making chicken soup may be your best answer.

I had the same problem with my small backyard flock. Of the two affected by what I was told is a viral disease termed "egg drop" (not the soup), one lays only sporadically and sometimes the shell is fragile, and the other never recovered and no longer lays. My feed and seed guy and my research led me to conclude there was nothing I could do. It has been a bummer needless to say, but check my post about some consequences of egg drop!

Egg eating can most definatly be a major problem, it spreads quickly among the other birds and can be quite difficult to put an end to. Lots of people feed back the eggs but most crush them and or mix with other feed stuffs. Its when they learn to pick at an egg when the problem develops. I see this on message boards all the time and experienced it one time in one of my flocks.

I think the weak shells are a problem more in the egg producing breeds and hybrids, and in some hatchery stock; there is little selection pressure for characteristics to preserve the best of the breeds. Commercial layers only need to last 18-20 months and hatchery stock is just to make lots of chicks to sell. It could be a problem in flocks dedicated to pure show stock too as selection pressure there is mainly towards phenotype. Probably a flock of mixed heritage would have little problem also due to heterosis or hybrid vigor.

They're more than a year old, so young, but it's not the start of their laying career. It happened occasionally in the fall, and stopped for most of the winter. The suspect bird (it's one of two, but without the fully-formed shells, it's hard to tell) is a Buff Orp. Now that it's happening again, we can isolate her and figure it out. A "sister" of hers, same breed acquired at the same time, died from being egg-bound / peritonitis before we figured out what was going on -- I'm concerned it could be a stock/breed defect, consistent with what fancifowl comments?

These two Orps in particular last year never laid more than a handful of eggs, some of which were fairly brittle, while all the other hens' eggs are quite robust. They all have free access to oyster shell, and eat the same ration, scraps and scratch (save the one Sicilian Buttercup who can fly out of the pen and gets all sorts of garden goodies).

She may be bound for the soup pot, though...