Thursday, October 7, 2010

Spackled Eggs

The past few days I have been getting an unusual egg in the daily  collection.  If you enlarge this photo, you can probably see that the white egg is very bumpy, like a textured ceiling. The brown egg has a few bumps, too.

In my online research to  learn what could be causing this I got several possible explanations:
a) Too much calcium in the diet (I doubt this, as my laying hens have mostly been eating starter-grower food with the young chickens lately. I would think laying hens get more calcium but i could be wrong - I will have to compare the ingredient composition.
b) Respiratory infection (can't see any sign of  runny noses/beaks or illness in my flock.)
c) Disrupted routine or stress (their lives seem pretty idyllic and calm to me.  I suppose one chicken could be extra stressed at the bottom of the pecking order.)
d) Inherited trait of some chickens.  (this is a possibility.)
e) First imperfect eggs of a young layer. I am going with this explanation for now, and expect the texturing will disappear. I do have several  new layers. I have occasionally gotten an egg with a small rough patch before (like the brown egg above) and it seems to have been when I have new hens laying.  

Until I got chickens and raised my own eggs, I never realized that chicken eggs could be anything but perfect, smooth oval gems.  Almost always they ARE perfect, so it has been a big surprise to me to discover an occasional egg with an indented midline, or a funny long shape or a soft shell...or rough texture.  Hens are females with hormones whose productivity varies with age, day-length, well-being, stress, and diet.  I can relate to all that!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I have been reading up on that too. I feel like I'm overloaded with information from the internet lol! I ordered pullets 'Buff Orphantoms'. The Golden Crest were not available for sometime. I even started a blog for my chicken adventure ;-)

Susan said...

I ca't imagine becoming a novice midlife farmer without the information resources of the internet to answer my myriad questions. But you are right - it can sure be overwhelming, as well as giving contradictory info. I visited your awesome new blog. I think you will love the Buffs!

Matron said...

they can get even more weird than that! Some even lay eggs with just a skin and no shell. Sometimes happens as hens get older, stressed and lay fewer but larger eggs. Still perfectly OK to eat!

Karen Anne said...

On another blog, someone who has chickens posted a photo of some double yolked eggs. I remember those from when I was a kid, but I never see them any more in store bought eggs. I guess they must filter them out, which is too bad, because they were such fun.