Egg yolk mystery for BYC detectives

[gritsar]

This morning when I let my adult birds out I noticed one of my light brahma hens has egg yolk yellow streaked down one side of her body; none on her beak or face, just the side of her body. None of the other birds in that flock have any tell-tale signs of yolk on their beak or elsewhere on their bodies and there's no signs of a half eaten egg in the coop (I checked thoroughly).

So an egg eater in her old age or just one of those things?

 

[BrattishTaz]

Gritty!

I would wait to see if there are any other signs of egg eating, hard to tell with only one "event". Are you sure none of the hens are egg bound or had an internal rupture?

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
I have a hen with egg peritonitis, so I don't know if she's laying or not. Seems to me if there was some egg eating going on I'd see the evidence on more than one hens face.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I never saw signs of egg yolk on a beak when one of mine decided to eat eggs. I found egg shells and a mess in the nest. I sure hope that is not your problem.

You do come up with some good ones. I cannot help based on experience. Do you think she was walking under the roost when one laid a shell-less egg on her from above? Maybe a shell-less egg where she was dust bathing?

After reading up on egg peritonitis, that one possibly deposited on the other.

 

[3goodeggs]

sounds like an egg fight.

 

[elabraleon]

 

[Judy]

Quote:
For sure! Subscribing to find out if you ever figure it out.

 

[gritsar]

I've checked the coop thoroughly, not one sign of a broken egg.

Later after the girls have all finished their laying for the day I think I'll pop the lids off the nestboxes and check them thoroughly. I'm guessing that my hen with the peritonitis, I think it's Sunny (can't recall her name right now), may have laid a soft shelled egg in a nestbox and then "Dink" got it on her when she went into the same box to lay. Maybe?

 

[suzettex5]

Could be that she ate an egg, then preened and 'wiped' the evidence off her face while doing so. I once thought my EE had purple feathers till someone suggested the same behavior- the feathers showed up the day I had fed the flock a bunch of blueberries! Turns out they were right since there havent been any purple feathers since!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Quote:
I was thinking the same thing.