Egg Question

[Michael L]

I just got back from checking the coop for eggs and found two that I have questions about. One is brown and has a white "halo" on one side and then more brown inside the halo. The second is a light brown, but I am not sure if it is from one of the EE that w have. I have seen eggs like this more than once now. I will take some pictures of them to show you what I am talking about.

The eggs in question are the middle one on the bottom, and the egg on the left of the dollar bill. Are the brown ones just lighter colors for the RIR?

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Just a close up on the weird egg

 

[Kelsie2290]

The brown ones could be RIR or EE eggs, some RIRs lay lighter brown than others and egg color does lighten as they continue to lay. Some EEs also lay brown eggs and they can lay any shade.
The one with a circle they call those white Banded Eggs.... I get them occasionally also, usually find them under the roosts, so assume something delayed the laying of the first egg that day.
http://www.alltech.com/sites/default/files/alltech-egg-shell-quality-poster.pdf picture on the bottom row to the right.
White Banded Eggs
These eggs are the result of two eggs
coming in contact with each other in
the shell gland pouch. At this point,
normal calcification is interrupted and
the first egg retained in the pouch will
have an extra layer of calcium - seen
as the white band marking.
Causes:
•Stress
•Changes in Lighting.
•Disease

 

[Michael L]

Thank you. Is the egg till ok to eat? Trying to figure out which hens are laying is becoming problematic with the different shades of brown. How do you tell which hen is laying and which one isn't or can you?

 

[Kelsie2290]

We eat them, have never noticed that there is anything different about them. There isn't really an easy way to tell which hen is laying which egg if you have a bunch that lay the same color and you can't catch them in the act. You can try doing something like trap nesting (a nest that catches the hen when she goes in to lay an egg), or putting food color on their vent so the egg gets some dye on it. If you are trying to see if a hen is laying in general, usually hens that are laying will have a space more than two fingers wide between their pubic bones and their vents will look wide, soft and moist.