Light brown egg now has specks...

[Longhaven Hen]

I have a Jersey Giant x Buff Orpington hen that has always laid a light brown solid-colored egg, but today her light brown egg had specks. I had always assumed that the light brown speckled eggs were coming from my Buff Orpington, but today Betty (the Jersey Giant) was the only one in the hen house in the nest, and my husband retrieved the egg as soon as she left the coop. We only have two hens that are currently laying, and Betty has been our most consistent layer, so we are pretty familiar with what her eggs look like. Our BO hen, Big Mama, is an inconsistent layer who has only laid 4 or 5 eggs in the five weeks that we've had her. Can eggs from a single hen change in appearance? Or did Big Mama lay the egg and Betty just sat on it and took the credit? I'm so confused...

 

[faykokoWV]

sounds like she may have been sitting on the other hens egg. I'd wait and see what happens. Usually color is darker when they first start laying and lighten as they get older I think.

 

[Akane]

She could just be sitting on someone else egg but specks can appear for various reasons. I was getting purple speckled eggs for awhile from 2 different pens that had nothing in common.

 

[nerfy]

Quote:
I just had an egg with purple specks. Turned brown when wet. I'm a novice in hens. What causes this?

 

[michickenwrangler]

I get a speckled egg every day from one of my hens, not sure which one, though

 

[Longhaven Hen]

Quote:
What are the reasons specks appear, and is it anything to be concerned with?

 

[Mac in Wisco]

I'd never noticed anything too different about the occasional speckled egg when we had small flocks, but we are now keeping a flock of 2500 sex links and we are packing 200 dozen eggs a day for our organic co-op. We see all kinds of eggs. Grape sized eggs, quarter-pound eggs, shell-less eggs, slightly flat eggs, elongated eggs, perfectly round eggs, banded eggs, thin shelled eggs, the occasional white egg.

What I hadn't noticed before about the speckled eggs is that they are mostly thin shelled. Our collection system isn't necessarily rough on the eggs, but they have to have quality shells to make it through. A lot of the speckled eggs just don't make it through without cracking. When a brown egg shell is formed the first layers are white, and the pigmented layers are the last to go on. I suspect the speckled egg shells are just somewhat incomplete, having been laid a little too early, like the shell-less or thin shelled white eggs we occasionally see.

 

[Akane]

One cause of speckling (especially purplish) is extra calcium deposits or sometimes you get an entire egg that is an odd shade from an extra layer of calcium.

I've found all my speckled eggs to have just as thick if not thicker shells. I still have to whack them rather hard to break them. I went to break eggs I got from someone else and used the same force as I do on my eggs. Egg splattered everywhere because I smashed the whole thing. That much force barely dents my eggs.

 

[Longhaven Hen]

Quote:
Interesting... I just added free-choice oyster shell to their run about a week ago, so perhaps it is extra calcium. Thanks!

 

[kcsunshine]

Quote:
I have 2 hens that lay speckled eggs, shells are also very hard. The speckles won't wash off, but I can scratch them off. I was wondering what caused them - almost afraid it was dried blood spots.