Laying an egg without a shell?

[Tacampbell1973]

This is the "thing"in above picture, uck.....

Pic above is Hope on top and Faith on bottom, no comb on Hopey yet. guess here to be about 2-3 months maybe

OMG I am so glad you started this post. I have the EXACT same problem with one pf,my favorite white Cochin hens. Well they're all my favorite, but some are more my favorite if that makes any sense...Anyway, I am a first year chicken owner so everything that happens to them is traumatic and scary and I feel so inadequate in caring for them sometimes and especially when they are sick.Thank god for this website and the amazing people who post on these forums or I would have crawled under a rock a long time ago,Unfortunately when you have a problem and you ask a question you get ten answers and nine of them are all different from each other. I don't mean any disrespect to any posters at all, my friends here are the salt of the earth, but everyone has different opinions and different methods to how they raise and treat their chickens. Much like parenting...so how do you know who is right? Having said that, my little girl Faith, got her at Auction last spring, she was really young then but didn't realize until later as her comb hadn't grown in yet. She is about 6 or seven months now I think. The weird thing is I would notice she would only pass this weird egg thing when the weather dropped to freezing.Everyone said that she was calcium deficient and whatnot,and my dad being a dietitian of fifty plus years, so I knew about calcium needing Vitamin D for absorption and all but by that same token, my medicine cabinet is pathetically meager as well as my poultry first aid kit. I studied as much as i could about it and the horrors of egg binding, meanwhile, Faith was getting to where she was having this strange "thing" coming out of her every week. .She would stand funny with her wings out to her sides like she was pooping and couldn't, I would take her inside and put her on a heating pad with a soft receiving blanket over it (my birds all have their very own blanket

)and within twenty minutes the "thing" would come out. Almost instantaneously she would return to her normal cheery talkative self. Its crazy. So I when her twin sister came in the house the other day exhibiting the same signs, it was time for drastic change. and fast, so (and i don't in any way condone this)I now every other day bring the girls in and give them a vitamin D12 with a capful of milk. Just temporarily until they can get vitamin D on their own via sunshine. Also should mention that little Hope or as i call her Dopeydoo, was actually yellow on the pink parts of her face and comb was so pale it was almost grey. I was truly scared for her life and couldn't afford the $80 the local vet wanted to charge JUST TO WALK IN THE DOOR never-mind how much any subsequent tests and meds would have been. Do I feel like a bad parent - yes, is my bird surviving, yes (do I talk a lot - absolutely

.Moral of the story, I did what i had to do to keep my birds safe and healthy and as bird parents that's all we can do...today both Faith and Hope haven't had an episode in several weeks and Dopadoo"s comb is a brilliant red color now.

 

[EmmaLeCheminant]

My wellsummers laid two like that this year and then haven't laid any since

 

[LTygress]

Anyone tried to incubate a shell less egg?

 

[LTygress]

That's kinda mean.. No offence. I am just an animal rights activist so, I do not think that is funny...

Humans are omnivores by nature. Wolves are carnivores. They attack, kill, and eat animals by nature. Its not pretty. Its nature. Dogs are descendants of wolves.

I'm not saying I'm one to throw a chicken to a dog and watch it suffer. My chickens are my pets. But you have to respect the fact that some people prefer to remain as natural as possible, even when it comes to feeding a dog.

Respecting DIFFERENCES in people around us, will lead to a much happier life, than getting all of THEM to respect the fact that you found something offensive.

 

[JLfarm]

Anybody know what happened here?

 

[Impress]

Anybody know what happened here?

Looks like a stressed or overheated hen laying a shell free egg. Sometimes you will get eggs that have ridges or bumps on them, they call that body checking, where the egg was squeezed by the hens internal laying mechanism during development. This looks, to me, like a shell free egg that went through a few body checks and got all kinds of squashed and squeezed.

 

[Fancychooklady]

Anybody know what happened here?

It's called a ' lash ' egg.

 

[Beekissed]

By this point in the thread you all should be asking how so many people describe a similar problem at the same time. A little research can show you that many people are experiencing similar egg laying issues just like this. Is it reasonable to expect that everyone out there has chickens that have/are:

1. Diets deficient in calcium
2. Over stressed
3. Defective shell glands
4. Suddenly cannibalistic

If not, then you could possibly deduce that this is a common problem that is most likely not caused by any of these problems but is just a common symptom of this time of year...as it is every year. And you will see many, many posts of this kind with helpful tips to increase calcium, protein, etc. and to bait eggs to "break an egg eater" or even advice to kill the dreaded "egg eater" as they simply cannot be broken.

Here's a tip....every year, twice a year, there are times when the egg laying gets a little freaky, with shell-less eggs, thin shells, easily broken eggs, double yolkers, eggs without yolks, etc. Simultaneously, you will also hear about "egg eaters" who are helping themselves to this bounty...news flash: All chickens eat eggs. It's a natural instinct on their part to keep nests clean and also because they are opportunistic eaters, so when they climb into a nest where an egg has been broken, they will eat it. It's normal and natural and happens at this time of the year and again at the molt in July/August/Sept. They will not continue to be egg eaters from now on, you do not need to somehow "break" them of it, it was not caused by feeding their own shells back to them or any other such nonsense.

This is not diet related. It's not a behavior that needs to be managed. It's a natural phenomenon that occurs when reproductive systems of chickens are either coming into higher production or moving from higher production into a decline in production. It's dictated by hormones and it only lasts a little while. How long it lasts is individual to the bird but it's pretty much a couple of weeks, on average. Older birds will have more issues than will younger, in their prime hens, and new pullets also have weirdness when they first start to lay. When a broody goes back to laying she can have similar issues.

How to make it stop? Patience and allowing nature to take its course. That's all.

 

[LTygress]

By this point in the thread you all should be asking how so many people describe a similar problem at the same time. A little research can show you that many people are experiencing similar egg laying issues just like this. Is it reasonable to expect that everyone out there has chickens that have/are:

1. Diets deficient in calcium
2. Over stressed
3. Defective shell glands
4. Suddenly cannibalistic

If not, then you could possibly deduce that this is a common problem that is most likely not caused by any of these problems but is just a common symptom of this time of year...as it is every year. And you will see many, many posts of this kind with helpful tips to increase calcium, protein, etc. and to bait eggs to "break an egg eater" or even advice to kill the dreaded "egg eater" as they simply cannot be broken.

Here's a tip....every year, twice a year, there are times when the egg laying gets a little freaky, with shell-less eggs, thin shells, easily broken eggs, double yolkers, eggs without yolks, etc. Simultaneously, you will also hear about "egg eaters" who are helping themselves to this bounty...news flash: All chickens eat eggs. It's a natural instinct on their part to keep nests clean and also because they are opportunistic eaters, so when they climb into a nest where an egg has been broken, they will eat it. It's normal and natural and happens at this time of the year and again at the molt in July/August/Sept. They will not continue to be egg eaters from now on, you do not need to somehow "break" them of it, it was not caused by feeding their own shells back to them or any other such nonsense.

This is not diet related. It's not a behavior that needs to be managed. It's a natural phenomenon that occurs when reproductive systems of chickens are either coming into higher production or moving from higher production into a decline in production. It's dictated by hormones and it only lasts a little while. How long it lasts is individual to the bird but it's pretty much a couple of weeks, on average. Older birds will have more issues than will younger, in their prime hens, and new pullets also have weirdness when they first start to lay. When a broody goes back to laying she can have similar issues.

How to make it stop? Patience and allowing nature to take its course. That's all.

Well, crap. I WANT mine to lay a shell-less egg with membrane in tact, so I can incubate it and see what happens. But my darn girls just don't want to participate with this!

 

[chickenluver555]

That's kinda mean.. No offence. I am just an animal rights activist so, I do not think that is funny...

I'm with you roostersandhens. The stuff people are saying about killing their chickens is kind of harsh. I hope that it is all just a joke and no one actually throws a chicken to their hungry dogs. That would be kind of cruel. I think of my chickens like my children and could never even dream about harming them, I guess not everyone thinks like that.