a silkie hen laid an egg full of poop

[silky ma]

I didnt think to take a pic till it was down the drain..and the sink sanitized. The shell was fully formed and healthy.My hen was hatched august 5 2009 so she is still young.I will look into a fistula.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I didnt think to take a pic till it was down the drain..and the sink sanitized. The shell was fully formed and healthy.My hen was hatched august 5 2009 so she is still young.I will look into a fistula.

I don't even know if such a thing occurs in poultry...it was just a thought. The egg forms further up from the bottom of the hen, so theoretically the poo inside the egg shouldn't occur from what I know.

 

[silky ma]

I agree! Poop should travel down not up! I am at a loss and hoping it never happens again. If it does I will call my vet.
Last thing I want is to loose her she is just tooooo darn sweet to me and a taskmaster to HER flock!! She keeps everyone
in line!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

However unlikely, it is possible for things to go backwards. Sometimes an egg will back up from the shell gland back through the isthmus and magnum, join up with the next egg and get a new shell around the second yolk. Result is an egg inside an egg. An experiment inserted a pebble in the isthmus and it got a layer of albumen and a shell around it.
With that in mind and the feces slipped into the cloaca without exiting the vent, it is possible for it to go backwards into the shell gland and join up with an egg, it would have to go all the way to the magnum otherwise it wouldn't have been inside the membranes.

 

[silky ma]

Chickencanoe, do you think that this was a one time event? Could a bacterial infection arise from this. So far she shows no signs of one.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Since some of the things I described are extremely rare, I wouldn't worry about it happening again. As gross as it sounds, I would probably open her eggs into a separate bowl rather than the skillet for quite a while.
There is possible infection but again, I wouldn't be overly concerned. I'm not a big one for prophylactically medicating but in this case, an antibiotic may not be a bad idea but you'll have to do some research on that.

 

[silky ma]

thank you! I have been opening the 2 eggs I am currently getting a day just in case. Its enough to put me off my morning eggs. SOOOO GROSS

 

[1muttsfan]

I agree with chickencanoe, as unusual as it seems just what was described for double wall eggs can happen. Big uck factor, but really just an accident of processing, and hopefully it will not happen again. If she does get an infection, you will likely see malformed eggs and shells.