Hi All! Background: we have 3 hens who are 3 year old, all good layers, all lay in their nest boxes but free range most of the day. We have 14 new chicks which arrived on April 15th from McMurray (allegedly shipped as day-old chicks, so they should be only about 6-7 weeks old.) Their breeds are totally mixed, but all are standard...no bantams. Yesterday, I found a smallish (bantam-sized) brown egg with speckles in the grass in front of the hen house. Though the chicks do not go in this area, it was right near the door that I enter and exit through when I put them in their run in the morning, and put them to bed at night. If it were in the coop, I suppose I could have kicked it out with some shavings? Today, I found a similar egg in the temporary nest box that I set up in the run. The chicks are in this area during the day, the hens are in this area at night when the babies are back in the coop. Today, it was pouring rain, so I kept the hens in the run all day, and the chicks in the coop all day. I found 2 hen-sized eggs, and that little brown egg all together in the temporary nest box. So who is laying these little tiny eggs! When I found the one in the grass, I thought it might be from a cowbird, but apparently not, since today there was one in the nest box! Some of my chicks are slightly bigger than the others, and are more fully feathered, but still...they should only be 7 weeks at the most! Any thoughts?
One of the 3 year old hens is laying these "fart" eggs. She may be nearing the end of her egglaying or she may just be getting ready to take a break from laying.
"Fart" eggs??? That is so funny! Since I posted this question, one of the hens seems to have stopped laying, or only rarely lays, and the other has been broody for about a month. So I suppose it could have been from either one of those hens.