Blood on first egg?

[train2110]

We have three young bantam Wyandotte hens and two roos, they are about six months old. The roos hit their maturity about six weeks ago. They are both crowing in the morning and doing their best to entice the ladies, wing flapping, stomping their feet, etc, who wanted nothing doing.

Yesterday my Wife saw two of the hens submit to the head rooster, whom was more than happy to comply.

The hens had not started laying yet. We live in upstate eastern NY, only about ten hours of daylight right now. Today there were two eggs in the coop, we have four standard hens that have been laying, but not much do to the winter. One egg was standard for the std hens and the other was smaller and had a blood smear on the side. I am assuming one of the bantams has layed her first egg.

Could the blood smear be from the egg being the first, or from the roo getting a little action? I am not overly concern as all chickens appear to be acting normal, well normal for a chicken that is.

My Daughters were a little freaked out, so I am posting this to alleviate their concerns.

Any advise would be much appreciated.


sorry for all the smilies, but my daughters really like them...

 

[Mahonri]

Almost all of my "first eggs" have had blood streaks.

I had a first egg from one of my BBL polish today... yup, blood streak.

 

[train2110]

Of our four std hens, two were laying when we got then and two were not. When they started laying there was no blood smear, but the eggs were quite small, full size now.

 

[BWKatz]

My smallest Polish 1st egg was bantum size. Her next egg was a grocery store small egg and it was rimmed in blood. So were her next several eggs. She is now laying w/o any blood smears and has had no problems.

 

[chickendude]

Stay calm.

every one of my hens first eggs were all blood streaked. Very normal.

 

[AinaWGSD]

It's pretty common. My first ever egg had a small amount of blood smeared on it, and we have no rooster so I know it was from laying the egg. I haven't really noticed any blood on any of the eggs since (either from that pullet or any of the other 2 or 3 that are laying) though. You might help alleviate your girls' concerns by pointing out that a chicken's poop and a chicken's egg come out of the same opening, but an egg is much larger and harder than their poop so it can sometimes cause a little bit of bleeding, especially when they first start laying and their bodies are not used to pushing something that big out the vent opening, but that it doesn't cause any harm to the chicken.

 

[train2110]

Want to thank you all for your reply! I have explained this all to my daughters, but it is nice to show them other people saying the same thing.

We just love this forum!

It is funny though, for the bantams there is one ref roo with two red hens and one white roo with one white hen. While all the chickens are in the same coop the roos tend to pay more attention to their matching hens. Although the red roo does seem to be dominate.