# Soft shelled eggs



## Mommajo (Sep 10, 2011)

Chester has started to lay again. He laid 3 and they looked fine.
Today we had a gas leak and I had to rush both birds outside. He was terrified, but it was an emergency. When I brought them in, there were 5 eggs in the cage. The 3 original eggs, one egg that was broken, cracked really, and a soft egg.
Any idea what caused this? I've been reading that this means a calcium deficency. The both have cuttlebones, vitamin blocks, and beak blocks. They also get vitamins in their water. They are on a seed diet with those little hard things in it (don't know what it's called). They get apple and pear as treats and sometimes cucumber. I haven't been able to interest them in any other fruit or veg. Although they will eat veg if it is chopped and added to cooked egg. They do eat from my plate. They love pasta and rice.
Any advice is appreciated.


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

too much supplementation isnt always a good thing


do they get fullspectrum lighting? all the calcium in the world wont help them if they cant absorb it. they need the vitamin D3 to do that. full spectrum lighting will give them that vitamin, or bring them out in their cage every day for some sunshine for at least a few hours.


and chester is a "she" if she is laying eggs. boys dont lay eggs


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## Mommajo (Sep 10, 2011)

Really??? Only girls lay eggs? Dally I'm not stupid


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

well then maybe call chester by the right gender.


also, you have not answered my questions in the post, so maybe that should be addressed...
have you tried anything to stop this bird from laying? 

does this bird have full spectrum lighting? access to natural sunlight (not through a window, modern window panes block out the light rays they need)


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## JaimeS (Nov 28, 2011)

Chester was known as a "he" until Mommajo found out otherwise but just decided to keep the name and the pronoun.

Mommajo, maybe you could add a brief explanation in your signature about this to prevent confusion? Believe it or not, some people really don't know that boys don't lay eggs!!


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## Renae (Feb 9, 2008)

Mommajo said:


> Really??? Only girls lay eggs? Dally I'm not stupid


Maybe you didn't mean to put he, but you clearly did. This post makes me think you know males don't lay eggs, but your OP says otherwise.


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

You need to offer FSL or another source of Vit D otherwise the soft shelled eggs are going to continue. Since Chester is a chronic egg layer you may want to look into lupron shots to stop the laying.

And please don't be rude to our mods. Some people haven't read you're previous posts and don't KNOW that you've decided to continue to call Chester a boy.


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## Mommajo (Sep 10, 2011)

I apologize if I appeared to be rude. I made that post at the end of one of the longest, worst, scariest days I have ever had. No one said sorry for the trouble, glad you're ok, glad your house didn't blow up. Just only girls lay eggs. I let my temper get the best of me. I really don't think I should be on this site anymore.


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

you asked for advice, we gave you advice. we gave you the answers, i am sorry if they weren't what you were looking for.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

I'm glad everything turned out OK, and I hope you'll stick around. 

Like everyone else said, calcium deficiency is the primary cause of soft-shelled eggs. Your hen needs vitamin D3 and magnesium in order to be able to absorb the calcium. The magnesium usually isn't an issue but the vitamin D is a bigger problem. We have an article about it at http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=27549 

I hope Chester has a full clutch now and won't lay any more, but you need to get on top of the vitamin D situation right away in case she's planning to lay more. Soft-shelled eggs are dangerous; they can be difficult for the hen to lay because her body can't get a proper grip on them to push them out, which can result in egg binding and peritonitis issues. They can also be a sign of general calcium deficiency in the hen's body, and since calcium is needed for normal muscle function this can cause egg binding due to muscle weakness. 

The cooked egg in the diet will help provide D3 as well as calcium and magnesium; how often are they getting egg? During breeding it's OK to provide a little cooked egg every day, about 1/4 tsp per adult bird, but I don't know whether this will be enough to meet the calcium/D3 needs. 

Liquid calcium drops made for birds provide the Ca, D3 and Mg, and they're a quick way to get these nutrients into the bird if you mix it with a small amount of cooked or moist food that gets eaten. I worry about over-supplementation with liquid calcium though, so if Chester starts getting more of the necessary nutrients from other sources you'd need to cut back or eliminate the liquid calcium. Not all pet stores carry liquid calcium for birds so it pays to call around before you go to the store. There are several different brands but they all seem to have the same formula. Liquid calcium for humans will work if the bird variety isn't available, as long as it contains D3 in addition to calcium.

Susanne (srtiels) has some photo collages related to soft shelled eggs. Here they are:


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

P.S. If I remember correctly, you've tried hormone reduction techniques on Chester and it doesn't work. But just in case you need it, here's the sticky on hormone control: http://talkcockatiels.com/showthread.php?t=32330 The article talks about Lupron shots, and that's something that you really should look into if the do it yourself techniques don't work.


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## SunnyandChickie (Jul 9, 2012)

We had to persue Lupron shots with one of our girls and they worked well!


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## roxy culver (May 27, 2010)

> I apologize if I appeared to be rude. I made that post at the end of one of the longest, worst, scariest days I have ever had. No one said sorry for the trouble, glad you're ok, glad your house didn't blow up. Just only girls lay eggs. I let my temper get the best of me. I really don't think I should be on this site anymore.


Its OK, we understand you had a stressful day but you came to us looking for help for your bird, so that's what we're offering. You also said you took them back inside, which led me to believe that everything in the house was OK. If it hadn't been, I had assumed you would've said so.

At this point, either you may want to try the 24hr daylight or the lupron shots. Before the calcium depletion gets worse.


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## Mommajo (Sep 10, 2011)

roxy culver said:


> Its OK, we understand you had a stressful day but you came to us looking for help for your bird, so that's what we're offering. You also said you took them back inside, which led me to believe that everything in the house was OK. If it hadn't been, I had assumed you would've said so.
> 
> At this point, either you may want to try the 24hr daylight or the lupron shots. Before the calcium depletion gets worse.


All I'm saying is that a glad you all are ok-this is what we think is wrong with your bird would have meant a great deal to me. But again maybe it's just me going crazy so mea culpa


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

Calcium deficiency related to chronic egg laying is probably what's wrong with Chester. As mentioned, there are some immediate things you can do to help remedy the calcium deficiency. The long term solution is to stop the chronic egg laying, and lupron is the way to do that if do it yourself hormone control techniques don't work.


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## Simbah (Feb 9, 2012)

Woah! How did you find out there was a gas leak? And where from? Must of been a very scary moment for you guys. I apluad you for taking the birds outside, instead of just yourselves 

Now, this is my opinion, so dont bash out on me - In my opinion, (no names mentioned) I believe everyone needs to respond to every thread or post with respect. Mod or not, it does not give the authority to throw back cut-throat snappy posts. Reading this you have to understand the person who started this thread could have lost allot in their lives, last thing we need is to push away posters just because someone is feeling crabby.

Just my two cents, not one to tolerate disrespect.


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## MeanneyFids (Aug 24, 2010)

i am sorry you see it that way, but perhaps read through the posts and see who really was the one who was rude. 


this is directed at the OP here.
if you would like, you may open a thread in the chit chat section regarding the gas leak, we would be very glad to read it there. When you had asked for advice, we gave you answers to your advice as that is what seemed important here. You asked for our advice, we gave it, going on about the gas leak (though i am glad everything is ok) would have dragged this post off topic. you are very welcome to share your story about the gas leak in the chit chat section. Here, you asked for advice on the soft shelled eggs and you got our advice.


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## tielfan (Aug 31, 2008)

> I believe everyone needs to respond to every thread or post with respect. Mod or not, it does not give the authority to throw back cut-throat snappy posts.


It can be hard sometimes to tell what the intended tone was in a written document, and sometimes the reader ends up projecting their own attitude onto it, which may be very different from what the writer actually meant. 

This is the cockatiel health section, and if you read through the posts again you'll see that the main focus was on providing health advice for a hen who is at serious risk of having problems related to calcium deficiency and/or egg binding. Trying to educate the owner on the bird's real gender was an incidental item, because sometimes we actually do get people on this forum asking whether males can lay eggs. We deal with a large number of people here and not everyone remembers the owner's quirk of calling the hen "he". It became a problem because the OP responded to that part of the reply and not the rest, but hopefully she is now focusing on the health advice instead because that's the important issue. 

If the OP would like to talk more about the gas leak, she is very welcome to start a thread about it in the Chit Chat section and get all the sympathy she likes there. But for purposes of the thread that you're reading right now, it's a moot point. The emergency was obviously over since everyone was back in the house without harm to anyone, including the birds and their ultra-sensitive lungs. But the slow-motion emergency related to the calcium deficiency is NOT over, and that's the issue that really needs to be dealt with.


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## Mommajo (Sep 10, 2011)

Ok. First thank you for your advice. 
Second-When you say "you know this is a girl/only girls lay eggs" etc..Putting a smile after it, or LOL or anything would take the "boy are you stupid" feeling off the remark.
Third-I'm not, nor was I, asking for sympathy. I was hoping for a bit of common courtesy as well as advice concerning the problem. Glad you're all ok, glad your house didn't blow up-Anything. Yes I know that the emergency was over, but again common courtesy. 
I didn't realize that it was innappropriate to mention the leak in this thread. I mentioned it to explain how I found the problem. I was asking for advice and explained the whole day in the process.
Fourth-While I appreciate all the advice I have recieved here, you guys have a tendency to lecture. It makes me feel like I am stupid for not knowing what you know. I know, well hope, that that isn't your intention but there it is.
I have apologized for my temper, and I won't apologize again.


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## bjknight93 (Nov 13, 2011)

I'm not sure why some people feel like we lecture when we give them answers to their questions plus additional advice.  

I have not commented on your thread, but if I had I probably would not have said anything about the gas leak either. And that is not because I'm mean or rude, and it isn't because I don't care about the gas leak. It is because I only pay attention to the relevant and important information of peoples' posts. Because the gas leak doesn't actually make a difference in the way I would answer your question, it would naturally (not purposely) go into the "recycle bin" in my head. That is just the way my brain operates.

I am sorry you have not had the best day, but having gotten offended earlier was not helping you get information to help your bird. It was destracting away from the most important topic of your thread. 

I do understand words come across a computer screen in the way the reader interprets it, not always the way the writer intends it. This is something people should always keep in mind when interacting with forum members.

That said, the main point of this post is not to belittle anyone or make any arguments between myself and anyone else. This post is to give some explanation to why misunderstandings, such as this one, happen on occasion. 

I do hope you choose to pursue some other type of hormone reduction strategies for the sake of your sweet hen. Calcium depletion is a very serious matter when it comes to egg-laying and the general health of birds. Have you seen Allie's wings? Both her wings are broken and we suspect it is from overlaying without a good source of calcium. This is the same scenario you are in right now and I would hate for your bird to end up looking like Allie.

Best of luck to you!


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