5th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2014 Hatch-A-Long

[ronott1]

I remember it came up earlier in the tread but it was so far back... one of my pullets is laying eggs with slight wrinkling that you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it. What could the cause of this be? The pullet is a Delaware that is much much meatier and heavier than the other Delaware I have that started laying a week earlier.

As long as the shell is normal for hardness, the most common cause is the egg stopping and starting making wrinkles.

@ChickenCanoe posted a link to a site that had a lot of information on egg oddities.

 

[chickengirl1193]

As long as the shell is normal for hardness, the most common cause is the egg stopping and starting making wrinkles.

@ChickenCanoe
posted a link to a site that had a lot of information on egg oddities.

Thank you... this has happened with most of her eggs so far. They are hard and the shell is shaped normally. When I let the chickens out in the morning she runs to the nesting box while the others start foraging (there are nesting areas in the coop) could she be holding the egg till she gets to get favorite spot?

 

[ronott1]

Thank you... this has happened with most of her eggs so far. They are hard and the shell is shaped normally. When I let the chickens out in the morning she runs to the nesting box while the others start foraging (there are nesting areas in the coop) could she be holding the egg till she gets to get favorite spot?

Probably!

 

[Avlana]

Is chip a male? what breed is he again? do you own his parents? he is very beautiful!

I'm not sure if he's male. I kinda refer them all as males till proven otherwise. But I did take note of some pink coming in on his comb. So he could very well be male. He's a chocolate wyandotte bantam. He came from shipped eggs so I don't have his parents. I have more hatching eggs on the way since I'm wanting to start with wyandotte bantams and I need more than one!

Milkshake (love the name!) is a cutie. You should update us with pics of him I'm curious how he grows out. That's a very interesting mix, a jap and silkie. Very cool!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

They look very happy dust bathing!

I remember the days when I had 6. It seems like a long time ago too.

The least I've ever had was 10. It does seem like a long time since life was that simple.

The most was about 125 (100 leghorns and occasionally 25 meaties) plus pheasant when I was younger.
Within 3 months of acquiring that 10 years ago, I had 100. Life's been busy since.

It does seem like the year BC was a long time ago.

I thought I would share some pictures of my adult flock. =) Here they are, all 4 of them enjoying a dust bath built for 1. LOL They are curtainly enjoying the sun, tonight into tomorrow we are predicted to get 6-8 inches of snow...

To this day I panic for a second when I see them sprawled after a dust bath. It looks just like a predator attack.

I remember it came up earlier in the tread but it was so far back... one of my pullets is laying eggs with slight wrinkling that you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it. What could the cause of this be? The pullet is a Delaware that is much much meatier and heavier than the other Delaware I have that started laying a week earlier.

If it looks like a seam going all around the egg, that's a body check (cracked in the shell gland and then it was repaired).
If it has a lot of wrinkled shell, that's usually a damaged shell gland from a current or past respiratory disease.

As long as the shell is normal for hardness, the most common cause is the egg stopping and starting making wrinkles.

@ChickenCanoe posted a link to a site that had a lot of information on egg oddities.

http://www.alltech.com/sites/default/files/alltech-egg-shell-quality-poster.pdf
http://web.uconn.edu/poultry/4-H Poultry/eggshells.html

 

[SilkieSensation]

They look very happy dust bathing! I remember the days when I had 6. It seems like a long time ago too.

The least I've ever had was 10. It does seem like a long time since life was that simple. The most was about 125 (100 leghorns and occasionally 25 meaties) plus pheasant when I was younger. Within 3 months of acquiring that 10 years ago, I had 100. Life's been busy since. It does seem like the year BC was a long time ago.

I thought I would share some pictures of my adult flock. =) Here they are, all 4 of them enjoying a dust bath built for 1. LOL They are curtainly enjoying the sun, tonight into tomorrow we are predicted to get 6-8 inches of snow...

To this day I panic for a second when I see them sprawled after a dust bath. It looks just like a predator attack.

I remember it came up earlier in the tread but it was so far back... one of my pullets is laying eggs with slight wrinkling that you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it. What could the cause of this be? The pullet is a Delaware that is much much meatier and heavier than the other Delaware I have that started laying a week earlier.

If it looks like a seam going all around the egg, that's a body check (cracked in the shell gland and then it was repaired). If it has a lot of wrinkled shell, that's usually a damaged shell gland from a current or past respiratory disease.

As long as the shell is normal for hardness, the most common cause is the egg stopping and starting making wrinkles. @ChickenCanoe posted a link to a site that had a lot of information on egg oddities.

http://www.alltech.com/sites/default/files/alltech-egg-shell-quality-poster.pdf http://web.uconn.edu/poultry/4-H Poultry/eggshells.html

Within 3 months of my first chicks (6 chicks, 4 ducks) I had about 60 birds running around. This past spring I was up around 400 at 1 point with over half of them being chicks. The current count of just over 50 birds (chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys) is the lowest I have been in a very long time. I used to have quail & guineas. May add those & peas back in soon.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I don't have the space for that anymore. When I had over 100 adults we had at least 4 acres.
Now the chickens and gardens are crammed into about 1/2 acre using every square inch.
I wish now that I had purchased my dad's 100 acre farm when it was for sale. It was 100 miles from my job where I worked between 58 and 84 hours a week. I couldn't afford both the farm and housing close to work so I let it go. I couldn't imagine a life where the only thing I did was work, drive and sleep.

 

[chickengirl1193]

Probably!

The least I've ever had was 10. It does seem like a long time since life was that simple.

The most was about 125 (100 leghorns and occasionally 25 meaties) plus pheasant when I was younger.
Within 3 months of acquiring that 10 years ago, I had 100. Life's been busy since.

It does seem like the year BC was a long time ago.

To this day I panic for a second when I see them sprawled after a dust bath. It looks just like a predator attack.

If it looks like a seam going all around the egg, that's a body check (cracked in the shell gland and then it was repaired).
If it has a lot of wrinkled shell, that's usually a damaged shell gland from a current or past respiratory disease.

http://www.alltech.com/sites/default/files/alltech-egg-shell-quality-poster.pdf
http://web.uconn.edu/poultry/4-H Poultry/eggshells.html

Thanks... it's not completely around ill take a picture. She may have had a respiratory illness in the past but she's healthy now

 

[SilkieSensation]

I don't have the space for that anymore. When I had over 100 adults we had at least 4 acres.
Now the chickens and gardens are crammed into about 1/2 acre using every square inch.
I wish now that I had purchased my dad's 100 acre farm when it was for sale. It was 100 miles from my job where I worked between 58 and 84 hours a week. I couldn't afford both the farm and housing close to work so I let it go. I couldn't imagine a life where the only thing I did was work, drive and sleep.

We have a little over an acre at the moment & are working on buying this & the other 2 lots beside it. If we get it all it will be almost 3.5 acres. Most is clear & remotely flat. It has about a half acre of 1 lot that's wooded & sloped down to the creek.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

We have an acre but only the back half is fruits, vegetables and chickens. On one side is a 4 acre field that has been for sale for almost 20 years. They've always been asking way too much for it or I may have already owned it. A house on 3 wooded acres on the other side of me and a house with 20 acres of woods behind me so even with 1 acre and in the middle of the suburbs it feels so much bigger and remote. Where my veggies are is about the only sunny spot on the place and that's only about 8 hours in the middle of summer.