Interesting egg question - strange shell

[Garrett33]

One of my new hens (Buff Brahma) laid a very strange egg. It is a white shell with half of a brown shell over it. It might be her first egg, I don’t know, but the Brahma’s we have lay brown eggs…have you ever heard of this? Please see the pictures. It looks as if part of the brown shell broke off during laying and exposed the underneath white shell.

 

[azygous]

It appears two distinct shells were laid down and the brown second layer broke away. Can you find the shell fragments?

How is your hen behaving? If the fragments are still inside, they may begin to cause inflammation and get infected with bacteria. It's important that you determine if the shell fragments are somewhere in a nest or still inside the hen so you can treat her to get her to expel the fragments.

 

[Garrett33]

I have found some fragments in the area where she lays, so I think she must have passed them. She isn’t acting strange; but with 6 of them, I’m not sure which one it was. Though none of them are acting strange. Why would it have 2 shells? Does that happen much where a shell forms around another shell? That seems really odd? I haven’t found one since. I’m betting it was her first egg and her system was just figuring itself out….thoughts?

 

[azygous]

Yes, a hen's system can bounce an egg backward so it travels twice through the shell gland. There's a word for it, but I forget it. As long as you found shell fragments, she'll likely be okay. New layers are capable of producing weird things.

 

[Garrett33]

Thanks…I had no idea!

 

[aart]

Did you find it in the nest like this.....or only discovered it after trying to break it open?

 

[Garrett33]

It was like that sitting in the nest

 

[Ponypoor]

My silkie hen laid a snow white egg as her first egg. Later in the same day she laid a second egg with no shell (soft egg) that was dark!

After that first weird white egg she has been laying regular light brown eggs.

Funnily enough when I cracked that white egg open to fry, the inside of the shell was tan coloured like the pigment was all on the inside! The egg yoke etc were all completely normal.... Chickens - never a dull moment!

 

[aart]

It was like that sitting in the nest

Likely another egg was broken and the empty shell settled around the intact egg.