Fishy eggs?

[Icedangel11]

I'm not sure what's causing this, but I have a 'fishy' taste to my eggs.

My hens Free range all day long, but also get free access to crumble food. Currently they are eating Dumor Grower/Finisher


http://www.tractorsupply.com/webapp...ory_rn=&top_category=&urlLangId=&cm_vc=-10005

They also get raw goats milk every couple of days.

I don't know what's causing my eggs to taste off, or how to fix it. It has been frog season and I have noticed a couple of my hens eat some baby frogs. Could the frogs be doing it? If there anything I could feed them to make the eggs taste better? I've also noticed the yolks are a bit duller than before, despite them eating LOTS of greens and bugs and such.

If it makes any difference, there's been some upset in the flock. I removed a duck that was trying to mate with my hens, a broody hatched a brood of 16, and I've got 6 pullets nearing the point of lay who've been trying to act like 'big girls' and move up in the ranks. I've never had THIS problem before..

 

[Ugadano]

I posted this in another 'fishy egg' thread, so I'll just copy and paste it here too. So frustrating having that smell/taste and not knowing what to do about it. I ask every chicken person I come to, even the county extension agents, nobody knows.

"We had chickens years ago, kept them in the next neighbor's old henhouse across the fence and free ranged in our yard and the pasture. Every year during the growing season, we'd get a couple of hens laying fishy eggs. I mean picked up fresh-laid same-day, not even hot days, and bring them in to crack in the pan and the smell would nearly blow you away! We had to have 3 bowls out. One to crack into then pick up and smell of it. At one point I couldn't smell the fishy unless I forked the yolk and smelled of it that way, and that's not good if you wanted them fried sunnyside up. 2nd bowl on hand for if the first one received a stinky egg, because even the remaining moisture from the white of the first would taint the next one. At that point, 1st bowl became the dump bowl for 'fishy'. 2nd bowl would have to be thoroughly rinsed out if it got a fishy egg. 3rd bowl for putting 'safe' eggs in to scramble or for mixing in baked goods recipe. The fishy egg would ruin a cake or pancakes!

After the growing season ended, no more fishy eggs until next late spring. I thought there must be some bug in the henhouse litter that they were getting, but never found anything, and finally decided there must be some weed growing that they were eating. But all my hens free range in my large yard, and I would only have 2 or maybe 3 out of over a dozen hens with that fishy smell. If even one egg was fishy, it would ruin a dozen in the scramble pan. I peeled a hardboiled egg the other day and the white tasted fine but I couldn't eat the yolk due to the fish taste. I am not afraid of their safety, as I know my eggs are fresh, but I had customers in the past and I would warn them to crack in separate bowls and smell them. I would make them good next time if they got fishy eggs. But after a while it's embarrassing and customers drop off. At this point with my hens, none of my green shells have been fishy, only a brown, so I think it's my production reds, and when one went broody and stopped laying, we didn't get any more fishy for quite some time.

The fishy egg has no visible difference, no cloudy appearance, but in some you can smell it as soon as you crack the egg. In others, as I mentioned before, it would have no odor until I broke the yolk with a fork, and even a hint of fishy would ruin the scrambled dozen if it got in there without me noticing! I have eaten them before, forced myself with picante or something to mask the odor because I was so reluctant to waste anything, no problems with an intestinal nature, but I just can't do it again!

I am not feeding them onion or garlic, fishy smell occurred long before I bought oyster shell, which doesn't stink, and they ALL eat that. I feed milo and whole oats and they free range. My family has corn allergy which is why we don't feed that and why we wanted our own chickens. I used to feed wheat that was grown just down the road, but not with my latest bunch of chickens We went probably 6 years without our own chickens and have started back with them again, now we have our own small henhouse in our yard and the hens don't go across the fence. Whatever it is they are getting, it's in my yard."