First Egg Question???

[hamnermitch]

I have nine Australorps that just turned twenty weeks old. I found our first egg this weekend. It was a beautifully shaped egg, a little on the small side, but still nice size. The weird thing was that the egg was not in a nest box. It was on the floor of the coop and it was covered in yolk. The egg was intact though. There was also a lot of yolk in one of the nest boxes closest to where the egg was. Any ideas about why the egg was covered in yolk. There were no other signs of broken shell or anything like that, just yolk.

 

[Nocila]

It's possible that two eggs were laid, but one of them broke, and the chickens ate the other egg, shell and all. When an egg gets cracked or crushed, chickens tend to go crazy over the egg, and eat it. If an egg is broken around my birds, one of them will sometimes grab the shell, and several others will chase the bird with the shell until it's gone. If the first egg was near the broken egg, it seems quite logical that the first egg got covered in the broken egg's yolk...

 

[hamnermitch]

Thanks, I thought about the second egg but never thought about the other chickens eating it. That's probably what happened. I haven't gotten any more eggs since then. I hope they all kick in soon!

 

[Nocila]

Chicken eggs hold a lot of nutrients, and the shells are like the oyster shells people give them to help them with digestion, so it makes sense that, once an egg cracks, they would try to eat it. It's a little creepy, but it's also rather healthy for them. (Once, when I had a sick bird, I was told to hard boil some eggs, and crush them for the sick bird, shell and all!)

 

[hamnermitch]

Thanks, I had someone tell me just yesterday to save all of my egg shells and feed them back to the chickens.. Great advice!