egg question

[lazy gardener]

Egg question: The first 2 eggs that I cracked today ended up being fed to the chickens. The first one had a white deposit about the size of a nickel in the membrane over the yolk. The second one had inconsistent texture in the yolk. Portions of it were very thick and much darker orange, almost like it was partially cooked. Any one have response to these eggs??? The only thing I can think of is that perhaps they've had too much protein from eating gobs of Japanese beetles. I hate to deny them their pleasure with the beetles. They're on layer crumble with occasional addition of crushed egg shell or oyster shells. Plenty of green forage in their run, they occasionally get out for an hour of free range, and have been cleaning out ant nests loaded with larvae, queens, eggs and pupae. I'd rather throw out the occasional weird egg than stop them from their very productive (for me) bug patrol.

 

[Kelsie2290]

This the The Poultry Site's page for mottled yolks, there are links to a bunch of other egg defects. They have a list of what can cause the various problems on the page. Unless you are a commercial producer, not sure what you are going to do about a lot of them. I don't know what effect eating a lot of Japanese beetles would have, but you'd think that if it was related to the beetle eating specifically, more of your eggs would be showing up with the same problem? Not sure how many layers you have. My birds eat the beetles also, but not what I would consider a lot per bird.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publi...ndbook/32/mottled-yolks-and-discoloured-yolks

 

[lazy gardener]

Kelsie, thanks for your reply. After thinking about the situation for a while, I concluded that it may be that I was setting the extra eggs (that didn't fit in my egg carton) in a bowl on my kitchen window sill. I'm wondering if the extra sunlight might have had an effect on them. Time will tell.