blood on eggshell

[vintageozarks]

Our chickens, ornamental bantams, lay one egg every other day, so I bought some special feed that is supposed to double egg capacity. But almost the same time it doubled capacity, we noticed blood on the outside of the eggs. I have stopped feeding them the special feed but wonder why the blood? The eggs are slightly larger too. I bought the feed from a Mennonite store down the road so pretty much trusted the worker, a Mennonite, who said it would not harm the chickens. [img]/forums/images/icons/frown.gif[/img] I love my chickens and sure don't want to harm them or cause them to suffer. Do you know why the blood?

[Michael]

How old are the birds? If they are older, they may not be able to handle the excess production.

[miss_thenorth]

We occasionally get blood on our eggshells too, if they lay a large egg. When introducing a new food, I would probably mix it in slowly like you do for dogs or horses.--let their body get used to it. Also, I probably wouldn;t start encouraging "eggcessive" egg production until spring. Chickens tend to slow down egg production in the winter. So my advice would be to give regular feed until spring, then mix in 80/20; 60/40;20/80; for about a week each until you can feed 100% egg production food.-- take about a month