Strange duck egg?

[HenHoarder]

All of my ladies have been laying for months.. And this strange green speckled egg appeared today.

Any ideas?

 

[chicklover 1998]

what breeds of ducks do you have?

 

[FussyHen]

Can the spots be scratched off?

 

[HenHoarder]

Almost everything except runners!

Cayuga, khaki, welsh, Rouen, pekin, & Swedish.

They're all almost a year now and this is the first time I've seen anything like it. It was just in one of the three community nests they all share. I thought it was poop or something at first but it didn't wash off.

 

[chicklover 1998]

could be the cayuga, I know they start out really dark and then lighten as the season progresses i know they eventually go to a creamy white but isn't there a greenish shade before that, so could it be like the egg just kind of got caught between color changes, I have a RIR hen that lays a brownish pinkish egg but always puts white calcium spots on her eggs.

 

[HenHoarder]

Maybe.. I got three or four medium/light grey eggs out of her when she first started laying, but they've all been indistinguishable from the others for a month or more now. Maybe she's trying to get back on the color wheel.

 

[cayugaducklady]

I'm a new duck keeper and I'm new to laying.

My first Cayuga laid an egg that had the black coating but in some places the bloom was laid on more heavily than others.. so the egg was dark gray/black with some super dark black spots all over it. It was one of her very first eggs and she only did it once.

The only time any of my hens have started laying black eggs again after laying normal "fading" bloom eggs was after a traumatic event happened. This particular hen took 3 days off from al;yiing after the event and her first egg back had a very black coating on it.

Could it be from something in their diet-- acorns, or spirulina or kelp? My girls get beets daily and if someone really indulges in them their egg shells have a pinker tinge than normal. But the calcium spots on the shells are white.

 

[HenHoarder]

They haven't gotten anything new diet wise... unless somebody found a new foraging spot with something delicious. They have about a 1/4-1/2 acre roped off where they wander about, so it's possible they could have found a fresh supply of acorns or different roughage they liked.

 

[HenHoarder]

.

 

[chicklover 1998]

I'm a new duck keeper and I'm new to laying.

My first Cayuga laid an egg that had the black coating but in some places the bloom was laid on more heavily than others.. so the egg was dark gray/black with some super dark black spots all over it. It was one of her very first eggs and she only did it once.

The only time any of my hens have started laying black eggs again after laying normal "fading" bloom eggs was after a traumatic event happened. This particular hen took 3 days off from al;yiing after the event and her first egg back had a very black coating on it.

Could it be from something in their diet-- acorns, or spirulina or kelp? My girls get beets daily and if someone really indulges in them their egg shells have a pinker tinge than normal. But the calcium spots on the shells are white.
I was trying to make an example and couldn't remember the word (pigment) so I decided to talk about my hen that add the calcium spots, but finally remembered the word I was trying to think of, but I also have one (chicken)hen that lays a brown egg but it has a bunch of spots that are just extra pigment like dyeing eggs if you dye an e.g. and then flick the colored water on it with a brush or something it is the same color only deeper, that is what her eggs look like. So maybe she just added a bit of greenish pigment?