The Mystery of the Mysterious Egg Innards

[Suburban Sprouts]

The other morning I went out to let the chickens out of their coop and when I entered the chicken yard I saw the insides of an egg - white and yolk - sitting on the ground. There was no shell. When I let the girls out, it took them a few minutes to find it and proceeded to eat it right up. But if they were the culprits of breaking/eating the egg, why did the leave it alone the day before? And where is the shell? What is going on??

Any egg-sleuths have any ideas?

 

[Happy Chooks]

It's common with new layers to get soft shelled or shell-less eggs. I wouldn't let them eat it though, if you can help it. You don't want them developing a taste for raw eggs.

 

[Wisher1000]

My guess is that it was "layed" that way just before they went to roost. Sometimes it happens, it skipped the shell application portion of the process. Don't worry about it, but in the future, I would pick up the egg before they get it. You don't want to start any bad habits....

 

[Suburban Sprouts]

Yeah, I wondered if that's what had happend... It's just weird because my flock for the most part has been laying for a year and I thought shell-less eggs were more of a newbie thing. I do have two hens that to my knowledge haven't started laying, but both would have odd colored eggs and I haven't seen either since the mysterious innards incident...

If I see this again, I'll clean up the egg so they don't develop a hankering.