Newest concern - egg color and texture change

[Wainbowmudd]

Beautiful Betty has been laying for nearly two months without a break inbetween like all my other hens. Normally she lays spotted Olive eggs. The last two days they look more grayish and rough. Nothing else seems out of ordinary besides our weather I guess. Cause for concern??

Two weird eggs vs normal at the bottom

 

[Chickassan]

Im not a weird egg braggart but one of my pullets started today.

 

[MissE]

Im not a weird egg braggart but one of my pullets started today. View attachment 2496004

I found one like that this summer. With the egg song that came out of her, you'd have thought she laid a watermelon.

 

[LaFleche]

To me it does not look like eggs from the same hen.

 

[Rysktal]

My olive egger used to have this happen as well! Some eggs looked grey/slate and some were green and speckled! She was my only olive egger so I know they were hers. No idea why!

 

[Chickassan]

New layers often have weirdness, yes at two months in she's still new.
But nothing to worry about, they aren't wrinkly or misshapen just a few shades off.

 

[Trisseh]

My one pullet has had a lot of variation in her eggs since she started laying too. I think it’s just less dramatic because hers are just a light brown. But I’ve had some that are quite dark, a few that I thought were giant eggs from my silkie (looked tinted rather than brown), a random soft shelled one a day earlier than she had been laying, and one really tiny one. It takes a while for them to iron out all the kinks when they get started.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Cause for concern??

That is weird. The way the colors work is that the egg should be blue throughout the shell with brown added on top of the blue during the last half hour or so in the shell gland. If you crack those eggs and remove the membrane from the inside they should look the same if they were laid by the same hen.

If the egg were laid early, before all the brown has been applied, you can see a dramatic difference in shell color. That does happen, maybe something disturbs her. We are all entitled to an occasional oops. But for that to happen two days in a row at exactly the same time in the process of putting the brown on the egg is pretty strange.

The brown color is manufactured by the hen from dead red blood cells. Red blood cells are wearing out, dying, and being replaced all the time so the raw material for that brown color is always available. So that is not the problem.

Some diseases can affect that but if all your other eggs are normal and that hen is acting normal then that is not very likely. Something to watch for but I would not be concerned yet.

When a pullet first starts laying it sometimes takes a while for her to get all the kinks out of her internal egg making factory. That could include the shell gland and putting that brown coating on the egg. Usually those kinks are straightened out in the first week or two, not two months later. If she remains consistent with that egg shell color that's the only thing I can think of. If she reverts to her old color then it is really strange.

I would not be concerned, those eggs are fine to eat. I'd consider it just a change in cosmetics. It is very interesting though. Thanks for posting.

 

[Wainbowmudd]

Pretty drastic color change to me

 

[Wainbowmudd]

To me it does not look like eggs from the same hen.

I know but it is. I have a nest box cam