Egg with two different shell colors???

[prayingcowgirl]

Please tell me what is going on! We found this egg near one of our nest boxes. It appears to be a white egg inside of half a brown egg. We have only brown egg layers. The white shell is totally hard and solid, just like a healthy normal egg. Then half the egg has an additional fully formed brown layer. The brown layer looks like it was broken off, but I don't see how that could have happened without breaking the white layer. There is nothing between the two egg layers - no membrane or air space or anything. Also, I broke the hole in the egg to see how hard the white prt was - it was not broken when we found it, it was a complete whole hard egg, and the inside was totally normal. We do have one chicken who has mysteriously been laying soft eggs for a couple months despite having free choice calcium and none of the other hens having any issues, but I have no idea if the two are related or not. We don't know which hen layed this egg - we have red sex links and rhode island reds plus a plymouth barred rock rooster.

 

[Peeps61]

It looks to me like the inside of the shell was not completely covered by the brown outer shell. I've not seen any like that, but I do know that my brown egg shells are white on the inside, so that would be my guess. If your hen was a new or young layer, that would probably explain it. Sometimes, they lay weird eggs.

 

[prayingcowgirl]

That's what I would have thought except I'm confused about the white shell being totally hard...or even how she could have laid a shell with a sharp jagged edge. And this is their second year laying, too, so bot a pullet :-/

 

[Peeps61]

Yes, I was going to ask how thick the white part of the shell was. It looks like she started with the brown covering, but didn't have time to finish and laid the egg. Hopefully, the sharp edges were pointing inward and not outward when she laid it!

 

[prayingcowgirl]

I was also wondering about that! I guess I assumed they slowly laid down a complete lyer and it got thicjer and thicker - I didn't realize they laid it all down starting at one end and moving to the other end with such a sharp edge!

 

[aart]

That is crazy!

Wonder if it got shelled twice, only the outer getting coated, and part of the outer shell was thin or brittle and fell apart?

 

[chickens really]

lol....So neat......Yes, all eggs start out white then colour is added.....If you scrub on a brown egg it will be white.....That is a two shelled egg.....So neat!!


Cheers!

 

[gneier]

Wanted to share a similar find with a twist. Instead of white/brown, I found a green/brown egg. We have chickens laying these colors separately.

 

[aart]

Wanted to share a similar find with a twist. Instead of white/brown, I found a green/brown egg. We have chickens laying these colors separately.

This one looks like it happened after the eggs were laid.......the brown one got broken and eaten and half the shell got stuck on the green egg.

 

[gneier]

You could be right - I thought it odd that the green egg would fit so perfectly into the brown. This morning I cracked it open, and there was a small air gap at the end between the shells.