Cracked Egg, should I be worried?

[ntjpm]

Ok 2nd day in a row that I have found an egg that looks just like this. The Chickens are all out in the run when I get the eggs so however this happened no one stayed around to finish the job. Is this an accident, or do I have a problem hen I need to figure out??? There was another egg in the same nest, could the other hen have stepped on it by accident?? (Same egg in all the pics, just a different view)
Thanks for the help, Tracy in WA

 

[nurse_turtle]

Hmmmm...looks hen-pecked to me.

 

[thekid]

looks like it was pecked by a hen but you never know if it keeps happening and it looks like that it is your hen...

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I have 1 flock that does that. They're 10 different breeds so probably none like the nest the way the last left it and scratch/peck a lot.
I've determined it probably isn't a problem but I have to watch those eggs closer, boil them right away and feed to the dog or chicks.

 

[ntjpm]

I just wanted to give an update in case someone has a similar problem and finds this in a search.

I went to cook up the eggs from this hen that were cracked so I could cook them and feed them to them for more protein. When I did that I discovered that the shell was really, really thin. So since my hens have free choice Oyster shells and there is also Oyster shells mixed into their feed, I followed some advice to get the calcium to absorb better in this hen. I realized that 4 days before I had stopped putting ACV in their water and then we started to have this problem for 3 days in a row. So I put the ACV back in their water and gave them some fennel for added calcium. I also put up a black cloth over their nest boxes (goes about 1/2 way down) so that they don't want to stick around in there, they hop in do their business and leave as quickly as possible.

So my theory is when the egg came out and hit the wood on the bottom of the nest (they insist on burrowing all the way down) it would crack the end of the egg. Who knows if I am right BUT today my egg from this hen is perfect again.

No crack and normal strength of shell.

HTH, Tracy in WA