blood on the outside of egg...

[swatchick]

It sounds like you found the source in your case, but just for info -- I had the same thing occur the other day, and when I looked over all the hens I saw that one had dried blood on her comb. It turns out that there have been some skirmishes over the most desirable nest box (and mind you, there are plenty of them, and they are all the same, but apparently one is better than all the rest.....

) and this particular hen just shoves her way in whether it's vacant or not -- and my best layer is not down with that at all, so I'm surmising that 'pushy hen' stuck her big self in there when 'the queen' was on the nest and got her comb nipped. Then, when she did lay an egg, she dripped blood on it as she pushed it around in the box...

 

[Betty1]

I just found the same thing on my egg, do I wash it and how

 

[jrfadfarm]

following...

 

[Greggs]

See this post for handy information about blood on eggs
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...mer-in-chicken-vent-anatomy-and-common-injury

 

[Rosemary F]

Every once in a while I'll get an egg with a little blood on it like that. Last spring, I found two eggs on successive days with blood streaks, and the second one was a lot bloodier than the egg in your picture. I went around and checked chicken bums and discovered that our Hermione had an injury of some kind just inside her cloaca.

I encouraged her to go broody to give her insides a chance to heal up. Fortunately, she's of a breed of chicken that goes broody at the drop of a hat. After the broody period when she started laying again, she was fine and has been fine since.

How do you encourage her to go broody?
And can I un-encourage my buff Orpington from going broody. She sits for weeks at a time with nothing under her. This is the fourth time in a year!!