What is wrong with this egg?

One of 9 month old Rhode Island Reds laid this egg today after several days of not laying. We recently turned the clocks back for daylight savings so I expected they may stop laying everyday. Since July I've faithfully gotten one egg a day from all of them. No change in behavior, she's been bright and eating normally just not laying. Then today I found this bizarre egg. Normal in size, shape and color but has this thick mucous like slime on the outside of the shell extended to a quarter sized spongey mass. It almost looks like a little brain. What's wrong with my little girl?! Please help this little hobby farmer who loves the heck out of her chickens!

Here's another picture of my weird egg

Maybe a lash egg? Old BYC thread on them and some links with other pics.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/473989/weird-egg-weird-clump-lash-graphic-pics
http://www.pocketfarm.co.uk/an-egg-of-any-shape/
http://thehappyhens.wordpress.com/2013/06/12/lash-eggs-thank-goodness-theyre-rare/

Ok my hen that laid the lash egg above hasn't laid since until today..and this is what it looks like.
It's soft and gelatin like..any ideas as to what this may be?? Please help!

I've never seen that before, I hope you find out what's wrong with her!

kelbel313 said:

Ok my hen that laid the lash egg above hasn't laid since until today..and this is what it looks like.
It's soft and gelatin like..any ideas as to what this may be?? Please help!

Click to expand...

Oh wow.

Before she stopped laying, and then started laying strange eggs, were her eggs "normal"?
Where they overly large or very small? How long has it been since she's been "laying"?

I've only seen this before in a farm magazine, but it's supposed to be a one shot fluke...
Maybe she has something wrong with her reproductive system?

If she's more of a pet, maybe you could bring her to the vet. Personally, I would just keep her and see what happens, as vet visits are very expensive, and then if she just kept laying freak eggs I would consider culling her. But that's just me-

ALSO: I know that this might seem hard for you to think of right now, but I've heard that sometimes after you kill a bird, you can open her up and take a look at her reproductive system. Good layers have eggs of many stages of development in their tract, and poor layers have few or no developing eggs. Maybe if you did decide to cull you could do some research and gather some clues that way.


Good luck, and please keep us posted!!!!!!!

X2, she has some reproductive system problem, that looks like more tissue / egg material. Would guess she is going to be an internal layer if she isn't already. Are you going to keep her even if she doesn't lay?

Of course! She is one of the family now..do you think she is sickly? She was attacked briefly by a hawk and I intervened but she stopped laying after that..obviously because of stress. She was barely injured, just a few pulled feathers, thank god I caught it in time.

Was going to say if you plan on keeping her as a pet, I would keep a close watch on her, if she does start looking off you could consider taking her to the vet, this is a UK site but there are some treatment options for internal laying or that sort of problem. http://www.chickenvet.co.uk/health-and-common-diseases/egg-laying-issues/index.aspx Stress etc can make birds stop laying, which a hawk attack would be even if she wasn't really hurt, but laying lash type things is odd. Have you noticed if she has started molting also?

You are such a smart cookie! No, none of my girls have started molting yet.
My husband can't even tell the "troubled layer" from the rest of the flock, they are all very healthy and very friendly.