Rough egg shell surface on small eggs

[chickykids]

My wyandotte has been laying for about a month. And her eggs have always been small. They have also had that opaque white film (calcium deposit) occasionally. She also has a roughness to her shells on most but not all of her eggs. The roughness is from dark brown spots on light brown eggs. Like sandpaper. Nothing is consistent and all other chickens lay beautiful eggs. Does anyone know if this is anything to be concerned about.
She is healthy except she has bad balance (she has had this since a chick) we used to think it was cute but it seems now like some sort of defect. What I mean is that if she tries to stand on one leg to prune herself she falls over. Not all the way, she catches herself.

Thanks!

 

[Perris]

Rough eggshell is, I think, a sign of excess calcium. But your girl has other issues, so maybe not in this case.

 

[chickykids]

They all have free access to oyster shell all day. They have a large run area for their greens and bugs but it is winter here and it is covered in snow. I give them greens for treats regularly along with their typical feed.

 

[Perris]

what is their typical feed?

 

[chickykids]

Scratch and peck pellets

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you read through the shell defects in these links you will see that a lot of different things are possible. If you read through the possible causes you can get really frightened. The reason you don't see those problems in the eggs you get from the store is that they screen those eggs before they put them in the cartons. Not that there is anything unsafe about those eggs, but many of their customers would not know that. So they sell those eggs to other people, maybe bakeries or pet food manufacturers that don't care how pretty the shells are.

While it is possible something is wrong with her most of the time it's not a problem at all. The eggs are perfectly safe for you to use. Maybe her shell gland is not perfect or something else is off a bit. It is extremely unlikely anything is really wrong to the point that it will hurt her. Sometimes a hen will consistently lay an egg with differences, it can help you identify which hen laid which egg. Sometimes it is a one-off, just not the egg she normally lays. That's an oops. I figure we are all entitled to an occasional oops.

You might look through those links to see if you can identify what might be happening. But if your other hens are not doing this, at least some of them some of the time, it is nothing you are doing. I would not treat the whole flock for what one hen is doing, you might hurt the others.

Egg Quality Handbook

https://thepoultrysite.com/publications/egg-quality-handbook

Sumi – Egg Quality

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/common-egg-quality-problems.65923/

If you see something different like this you need to pay attention and check it out. In this case I don't see it as a problem.

 

[Sally PB]

I have one pullet who has a pinkish bloom to her eggs, so I always know which are hers. They also some pretty good sized specks of excess calcium on about every second or third egg. It's just how Stormy does eggs.

 

[chickykids]

Thank you for your experience. I really appreciate the amazing feedback.