Help I need advice. I'm concerned! Consistant HUGE double-yoker hen! OUCH!!

[thecuriouslynx]

Hi all,

I have a few new adult Copper Maran hens that I've brought into one of my two flocks. One hen, (I'm still figuring which one) is very regularly laying a HUGE double yoke egg about every third day. Obviously her proverbial inner production line has a slow cog in it for the yokes to get packaged together. LOL! These eggs are BIG. At least the size of large duck eggs. Xtra ,extra, extra large, they don't even fit in a regular dozen egg container slot .

Every time I look at one of these eggs all I can think of is, OUCH that had to of hurt! All hens are healthy and happily run around scratching in the horse and goat pens, and eat and drink normally. I know these eggs will not give healthy chicks. But I have never had a hen with this ability before, still new to chickens in the big picture. So my questions for anyone who can help or has advice are;

1. Am I right in thinking she has a higher risk for an impacted egg?

2. Is there anything I can do or feed to help her with this?

3. If a hen is born with a set number or string of "eggs/yokes" inside of her that move down the "assembly line" and become
eggs every 25 hours or so, this makes one assume that normally the "yokes" are pretty much evenly spaced in their string of
membrane. So how do "yoke/egg's" become close together like this? What happens in the hens body to make this occur?

4. Does anyone have anything to add to the above?


Thanks!
Concerned chicken momma

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Double yolks are common in pullets. It's the one nice anomaly that occurs due to them still working out, maturing, reproductive system. I've many pullets lay double yolks and the rate of them gradually decreases. None of our adult birds lay them. It's nothing to worry about and much nicer than shell less eggs.

 

[thecuriouslynx]

Egghead Jr.
Thank you very much for your reply! I am not sure how young/old any of these girls I brought in are. Lady I met just had to get rid of them because her husband was apparently fed up with them. They are wonderfully docile and social girls. A little underweight and shabby looking but that will change with good protein and carbs. One girl is trying to go broody but I don't think she is quiet there yet. She is setting the eggs only at night and not during the day. It is not that warm here about 34 in the daytime, and I know she hasn't stayed on the nest because EVERYONE'S eggs are in the nest at night when I get home from work! For some reason about a week ago my 12 girls who have been using four of the five different nests to lay their eggs, decided now that ONLY one nest is suitable. LOL! They will even wait for each other so they can plop their egg in that particular nest. I wonder.. are they perhaps trying to accommodate the hen that is thinking about brooding by providing her with a rapid clutch of eggs? Natural instinctual wild chicken behavior? Survival of the species and overall flock? Or am I way off course here.

On a side note, hello fellow Connecticut Yankee! The Conn. river valley is a beautiful area. I am originally from Conn.too, little town of North Grosvenordale.

NE corner. Have lived in the Pacific Northwest now (Washington State) for quite a few years. Love the Spokane area, it's drier than Seattle. Lots of farmland and Idaho mountains close by.