Hmmm... Lots of Speckles all of a sudden?

[Acre4Me]

So, EE consistently lays a solid medium pastel green egg for the past 6+ months. Never a single speckle. Here is her latest egg, with lots of speckles, after I washed it off. Yes, sometimes there is variation in the egg shape and color of a chicken's egg, but curious if the sudden appearance of lots of speckles indicates any problems? Thx.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

No problem. Sometimes there's speckles, sometimes not. I personally like speckles.

 

[solidsnake]

If she doesn't normally have speckles, it can be due to stress. When it rained for a week straight my SLW was NOT happy and her eggs had some speckles when they normally don't. Check if anything could be stressing her out. Usually weird eggs is almost always stress.

 

[Chick-N-Fun]

I will randomly get green specks on my EE eggs....it’s just extra pigment. Nothing to worry about! I love speckled eggs!

 

[aart]

I doubt there's a 'problem'...but interesting for sure.
Gremlins in the spray booth?

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good to know. Sometimes I get some speckles on my brown eggs. They are just as tasty as the plain ones. Yummmm……..

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good to know. Sometimes I occasionally get speckles on my brown eggs. still taste yummy!!!

 

[Acre4Me]

We have a couple of hens that lay an egg with speckles some or most of the time, so the speckles themselves are ok. However, it is the sudden appearance of the speckles - and a lot of them - that had me concerned. We also had a hen drop dead suddenly a few days ago (no apparent reason) so am a bit more attentive to the finer details, I guess.

As @solidsnake mentioned, I wonder if it stress. Cold, cold, cold. Coop is dry and ventilated. But it has been so windy (along with the cold) that I wonder if the coop is draft-free enough - could that cause stress? It seems like it is draft free to me, with the only airflow above their heads coming in at the lower eaves to leave out of the upper eaves. Coop is behind the barn, so pretty well protected from the direct winds out of the west. We have a heat lamp in coop to come on when it is 15F or lower. We have lights on a timer, so they have 15 hours of light a day (including the daylight hours when coop light is off). The other clue is lack of eggs - we have 8 layers currently and are getting 1,2, or at most 3 eggs a day. Heritage breeds, so not expecting more than 5-6 a day anyway. They are just 12 months old (and one 6 month old layer), so should not be molting. No signs of parasites or illness. Red combs and wattles (except the frostbitten bits from that polar vortex a few weeks ago). Anyway, being relatively new to chicken keeping, and its the first winter with chickens, I'm curious about the speckles and the lack of eggs.

 

[aart]

Heat lamp might be skewing their 'light'.
Frostbite might stop laying.
One thing I've learned is that chickens can be consistently inconsistent.

 

[Acre4Me]

Heat lamp might be skewing their 'light'.
Frostbite might stop laying.
One thing I've learned is that chickens can be consistently inconsistent.

True.

The heat lamp is red light, so should minimize the light impact.

The rooster has the worst case of frostbite. Only a few of the single comb hens have any frostbite and it is only a tiny part of one or two tips for any of those. None look infected or swollen.