California-Southern

[Carlyle]

Also - it is most likely that these are calcium speckles - and I'm not concerned - just curious. As you can tell, I'm a 'newbie' - but in my study of chickens, I learned that the egg is built up in stages as it moves along through the chicken. After the yoke and white is made, the white calcium is put on, which forms the shell. Then as THE VERY LAST STAGE, the thin layer of pigment is applied. So - the big question remains: How do calcium spots get onto the eggshell on top of the pigment layer? Where do they come from? What part of the chicken does this?

 

[OCchickens]

I have a buff brahma that lays eggs like that.

 

[flower]

Our chickens are almost like our children. To clarify, when I became a parent I needed to learn so much about life and being a parent, because I really wanted to do the best job that I could. In raising chickens or anything else including (even) plants, I read, study and discuss in order to make that entity thrive. All of life is like that in fact ! If you want to do a good job, you need to learn. And as folks in this "information age" we certainly have many resources.

Excuse me for being Philosophical but really I am just being Zen like !

 

[fancbrd4me02]

Carlyle, did you get them as chicks or young hens? I know the feed store often carries red stars.

 

[Carlyle]

5 or 6 months. They had just begun laying. FYI, several days now, all eggs are back to 'normal'. Very strange. Regardless of what caused it, I still don't understand the mechanics of how this could happen. (I'm an engineer, so things like that 'worry' me.)

 

[dovecanyon]

Hi all
Does Vista County Feed carry Purina feeds? I'm down in Chula Vista, and having trouble finding it. We don't have a feed store here, and the one in San Ysidro doesn't carry it. I'm willing to make the drive and stock up!
Thanks!

 

[flower]

Carlyle, I really enjoy your posts. Of course food, cooking etc all all chemistry but scientists never have found all the answers for things for stuff that happens in nature no matter how hard they try. It seems that natural science is on the edge between pure science and that junk called sociology, psychiatry and philosophy. I call them junk science because those folks with their PHD usually are just offering opinion not proff.

 

[flower]

BTW I also think that the spots are calcium. The birds eat the soil to add weight for peristalsis and the soil here in the SW is loaded with the stuff. I never add CA to their diet and the shells are plenty thick and firm. But just for the heck of it I save egg shells and when they are nice and dry, pulverize them and add them to my soil. My dirt can not have enough organics added to it. I even raise those red worms for enrichment around the veg plants.

 

[Carlyle]

One of the eggs I got today was 2.5+ oz. The largest prior to that was 2.3 oz.
This is our first official 'Jumbo' egg. This dude is HUGE! 2 3/4" long. An omelette-in-one!!

 

[Carlyle]

What do YOUR chickens like to eat? I read a lot about "kitchen scraps" that chickens go GaGa over. Mine, not so much.

Mine eat Purina Layeena Crumbles and like that a lot. But they go totally nuts over Scratch. The feel 'entitled' to that and stomp around and bawk until they get some.

I give them any vegetable and fruit peelings and cores and stale bread. They play with that and eat a little but seem mostly ambivalent. However, this morning I gave them some left over pancakes - nothing special, just some mix. Now THAT really got them going. They LOVE those. Curiously they start in the middle and keep pecking the hole bigger and bigger until the pancake vanishes.