Fertile egg, how is that possible?????????

[Ema]

I just let the hens out and collected eggs like every morning. Again today I got a soft shell egg, I don't know who is laying them!!!!!

I brought it in the house and took a look at the egg inside, and it has a bullseye. At first I didn't know what it was so I had to look it up through forum pages and came across a link to some images. here is the link!

http://4hembryology.psu.edu/fertile.html

the white dot looks EXACTLY like the second photo.

with this said I don't have a roo in my flock, all my hens are red. well except for one who is lighter, look like a golden comet. Is it possible I have a roo hiding in the mix??

kinda confused...any help offered will be appreciated. This btw is the second soft shelled egg I have gotten in the last few days, I have been giving them yogurt and cottage cheese etc for calcium but it doesn't seem to be helping who ever is laying it. all Hens look the same size, no one is sick and none have mites etc...they are all on layer pellets and I give them a mix of scratch and premium bird seed mix I got from the feed store. I usually give them this mix int he am in the run for something to do and a tiny bit at night to make them come in for the night.

 

[Bantimna]

How old are your chickens?
Secondly it happens that some eggs have "bullseye's" and are not fertile.

 

[Ema]

Quote:
ok that is good to know, my chickens are (have to count weeks).....20 wks as of tomorrow, they have been laying since the 23rd of Sept.

 

[CMV]

Three years ago when I first started with my chickens I found some eggs that had the bull's eye and I assumed I had a roo in the mix. I named the most likely culprit "Dinner" and waited to start hearing crowing. Nothing. Then "Dinner" went broody. Turns out I never had any males in the mix. I am not sure why the mark happens sometimes, but I can attest to it. I never had roos until this year, but occasionally a bull's eye would show up on my non-fertile eggs.

 

[HorseFeatherz NV]

Do you offer your girls oyster shell? This will help supply additional calcium to help harded egg shells. Just offer the oyster shell in its own bowl and your girls will eat what they need.

 

[chicknduck]

My golden comets lay ones like that all the time and I have no roos either?

 

[sourland]

The nucleus is visible in all eggs. Bullseye is simply an enlarged nucleus due to a couple of mitotic changes. I would guess that what you are seeing is an unfertilized nucleus. (Or you have a very sneaky rooster hiding in your flock.

)

 

[mamabigbird]

You didn't mention any crushed oyster shells or crushed egg shells in the list of things you feed them,
They will lay soft shells if they don't have one or the other or both.
Yogurt isn't enough.

 

[Ema]

I posted a thread sometime this past week asking for calcium suggestions because the place where I get my feed was unable to get me or anyone else in this area oyster shells because of an issue at the company they get the stuff from. Anyhow I was told that feeding them yogurt and crushed eggshells would be sufficient as well as cottage cheese on that thread. Obviously who ever is laying the soft shelled eggs needs more calcium and so I went back down to the ranch and talked to the owner, brought him coffee and a donut too, lol, and told him I am having an issue with a chicken and really needed oyster shell. His wife is at a horse show somewhere in a different province and due to come back early next week and so he got on the phone with her and asked her to seek out a feed store around her and pick up a few oyster shell bags and bring back with her. I should have it by next week. In any Event he did inform me that in 2 weeks all should be back to normal and he should be carrying everything we need for chickens again, including BOSS and the oyster shell. I had resolved in taking the 2 hour drive out of town to find a feed store and see if they had it too, but its all in the same region and I guess the out of town feed store doesn't have it either.

so for now I just have to wait it out I did take another look at my flock and I am positive I do not have a roo.

 

[KelleyMarie]

Quote:
ditto, that is what a man who raises chickens for a living told me.