We have two welsummers which started out when we first got them laying light brown speckled eggs but when our silkie started laying, their eggs started to be white. They are so white they are difficult to identify next to the silkie's, you can only tell them apart through the shape. (We only have the three adult hens).
I've read welsummers lay chocolate brown eggs but these two have never laid them that dark even when they first moved in.
They are good layers, laying one a day every day and sometimes (is this even possible?) there seem to be two a day. I read the bleaching can be down to a lack of shade but they spend a good part of their day under bushes and lying under a bench which is in the shade of a tree. There is plenty of shade in the garden where they free range and I've put bowls of water everywhere which I top up every day.
Could this indicate a health problem? I've noticed their shells are quite a bit thinner than the silkies and they have a habit of dropping eggs off the roost bars or just randomly dropping one off as they go, on the path or the doormat. I don't imagine they're stressed, they have a routine and spend plenty of time sprawled out dust-bathing without paying much attention to what's going on around them. Their combs look good. They have lots of room to roam and as chicken's lives go theirs aren't at all bad! There have been some nest box politics going on but the welsummers now lay in one box and the silkie has a nest behind the shed door. They rejected the nesting boxes my fiancee spent ages building! He thinks it's down to the silkie laying white eggs and they all came in line, but could that be possible?
I've read welsummers lay chocolate brown eggs but these two have never laid them that dark even when they first moved in.
They are good layers, laying one a day every day and sometimes (is this even possible?) there seem to be two a day. I read the bleaching can be down to a lack of shade but they spend a good part of their day under bushes and lying under a bench which is in the shade of a tree. There is plenty of shade in the garden where they free range and I've put bowls of water everywhere which I top up every day.
Could this indicate a health problem? I've noticed their shells are quite a bit thinner than the silkies and they have a habit of dropping eggs off the roost bars or just randomly dropping one off as they go, on the path or the doormat. I don't imagine they're stressed, they have a routine and spend plenty of time sprawled out dust-bathing without paying much attention to what's going on around them. Their combs look good. They have lots of room to roam and as chicken's lives go theirs aren't at all bad! There have been some nest box politics going on but the welsummers now lay in one box and the silkie has a nest behind the shed door. They rejected the nesting boxes my fiancee spent ages building! He thinks it's down to the silkie laying white eggs and they all came in line, but could that be possible?
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