Found inside an egg

[itsbob]

Cracked an egg into the frying pan and found a hard white long substance.. maybe an inch to an inch and 1/2, long flat on end round on the other. Other than that egg looked normal. Orange yolks, clear whites.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It’s not that unusual to find something inside an egg. What we normally see is a meat spot or blood spot. When the yolk enters the oviduct to start its journey through the hen’s internal egg making factory, occasionally something goes in with it. This can become trapped in the egg. Commercial egg companies electronically candle their eggs so none of these make it to the store. They don’t want to surprise their customers like you were surprised. So something entered the oviduct with that yolk. I don’t know what it was. It’s generally harmless except for the YUK! factor. This does not mean the chicken is sick. It just means she sloughed off some material or ruptured a tiny blood vessel.

I’m going to show you something that might really disgust you though. I think it’s important just in case you need to treat your flock. When chickens have roundworms, those worms are mostly in the intestines, but it is possible for one to crawl out of her intestines and back up through her reproductive tract, where it can get caught in an egg where it starts in her internal factory. When this happens if generally means a pretty heavy infestation of roundworms. So I need to ask if what you saw looks like this photo?

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/1/egg-quality-handbook/35/roundworms-in-eggs

 

[itsbob]

Definitely not that "neat" or uniform in shape. It was scraggly (that's a technical engineering term) on one end, and flat on the other. And it wasn't attached to the yolk, just floating in the white..

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m a retired engineer. That is a perfectly valid engineering term.

I don’t know what that was, just something that developed or broke loose inside the hen. It may or may not mean she has some type of problem internally. It was not a fertile egg developing. That would have looked a lot different.

I grew up on a small farm with chickens. Mom always cracked an egg into a separate bowl before she put it in with other stuff. I do the same thing. Finding something in an egg from a backyard or small farm flock is not all that unusual.

 

[itsbob]

I’m a retired engineer. That is a perfectly valid engineering term.

I don’t know what that was, just something that developed or broke loose inside the hen. It may or may not mean she has some type of problem internally. It was not a fertile egg developing. That would have looked a lot different.

I grew up on a small farm with chickens. Mom always cracked an egg into a separate bowl before she put it in with other stuff. I do the same thing. Finding something in an egg from a backyard or small farm flock is not all that unusual.

My mom did the same thing, even with store bought eggs..

Lesson learned.. though I still ate the egg without the thing in it.