Help! What is this?

[Dfinn59]

l found this in my nest box this morning. This is the second time this has happened.

 

[lazy gardener]

Lash egg.

 

[rebrascora]

That appears to be a lash egg and suggests that one of your girls may have an infection of the oviduct, which can become serious/fatal. I would do your best to identify which bird is laying them and seek veterinary assistance if she is a pet as early intervention with antibiotics is very important for treatment to be successful. I appreciate that they may all appear normal and healthy at the moment because often the infection remains localised to the oviduct for some time and does not make the bird feel "sick" but the oviduct often becomes impacted with this lash egg material (up to the size of a grapefruit) to the point that it is completely blocked and then starts to constrict the gut as well as being extremely uncomfortable to the bird. Once that happens, extremely expensive and risky surgery is the only hope, so better to be proactive.
Sorry to be a worry monger on this but better to know the possible prognosis before things get too bad.

 

[Dfinn59]

That appears to be a lash egg and suggests that one of your girls may have an infection of the oviduct, which can become serious/fatal. I would do your best to identify which bird is laying them and seek veterinary assistance if she is a pet as early intervention with antibiotics is very important for treatment to be successful. I appreciate that they may all appear normal and healthy at the moment because often the infection remains localised to the oviduct for some time and does not make the bird feel "sick" but the oviduct often becomes impacted with this lash egg material (up to the size of a grapefruit) to the point that it is completely blocked and then starts to constrict the gut as well as being extremely uncomfortable to the bird. Once that happens, extremely expensive and risky surgery is the only hope, so better to be proactive.
Sorry to be a worry monger on this but better to know the possible prognosis before things get too bad.

How do l identify the guilty bird? Thy all look well.

 

[rebrascora]

How many do you have? Are we talking 5 or 50? Are they all the same breed that lay the same coloured eggs?
You can apply a different coloured food dye to each of their vents on an evening whilst roosting and then see which eggs have which coloured stains on them the next day... use zip ties or leg bands to identify which birds have laid, so that you can narrow it down. Or you can cage individual birds for a day but obviously these techniques will only work with a relatively small number of birds. The bird that has the problem is unlikely to be laying normal eggs once they have an infection and you may stop seeing the lash eggs because as a mass of them builds up inside them, they become unable to pass any more. Once it becomes that bad, you may be able to identify the bird by a swelling/bulge around or below the vent and their feathers may start to get soiled with poop, but usually the problem is too far gone by then. They sometimes have difficulty passing a lash egg to because of it's lumpy shape, so they may spend significantly longer in the nest box or be standing with their back hunched with their vent pulsing out in the run.

 

[Chickens like to peck me]

lash egg i think