Normal egg membranes or worms?

[mrsjones08]

Hello,

I've only had hens since mid-May. I am wondering if anyone has advice on how to tell between natural egg structures and possible worms. I haven't found any good info online. My black Australorp had small amounts of blood on her first couple eggs, as well as in her stool for a couple days. I am aware this is normal in new layers, but I have also read it can be a sign of parasites. So I started studying her poop and thought one of the two days it looked as if it might have thin white structures in it.

That led me to start analyzing her eggs when I crack them open and there have been the thinnest white, thread-like structures here and there in the albumen. They basically look like the most delicate cellophane noodle fragments. Some free-range eggs I buy have also had this. Is there any way to tell if this is just a normal structure of the egg, such as that white membrane you sometimes see around the yolk, or worms? I don't see it in my other two layers' eggs and none of the area vets will analyze my eggs as I've read they can easily do, similar to a fecal float test.

My husband doesn't see anything amiss and has been eating these eggs. There has not been blood in the stool or signs of anything odd after those initial couple of days in the earliest laying period other than these continued threads in the albumen. Oh, and her eggs are rather pointy, in case that's of any consequence. Thanks for any guidance!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The blood and other things in the stool is completely unrelated to what is in the eggs. Two different systems.

Blood in the eggs is from ruptured blood vessels in the oviduct. Perfectly fine to eat.

Blood in the stool is usually coccidiosis from the protozoa coccidia overpopulating the digestive tract.

The white strands in the albumen are the chalazae which centers the yolk in the albumen. ALL bird eggs have them.

The layers in the egg are the bloom ( protective coating applied at lay), the shell, the outer membrane, inner membrane, albumen, yolk.

It would be nearly impossible for a worm to show up in an egg.

I would have a fecal sample read by a vet or poultry lab to see if they have worms or a heavy load of coccidia.

A good diagram of the anatomy of an egg on this page.
http://www.grit.com/animals/guide-to-egg-quality-ze0z1204zsie

http://hencam.com/henblog/2013/07/an-egg-is-clean/

 

[yellowbee0110]

Great info and links @ChickenCanoe !

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Thanks.
I'm a poultry educator at area community colleges, poultry conferences, urban farming groups, humane society and other green venues.

 

[yellowbee0110]

Well, shoot! I'm going to add you to my list of people to stalk!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

 

[Ridgerunner]

Canoe, if you look through this, you’ll see the blood in an egg normally does not come from blood in the oviduct. When the yolk is growing in size it is enclosed in a membrane. That membrane has blood vessels in it. When the yolk is released to enter the oviduct that membrane splits along a line that should not contain any blood vessels, but sometimes there are blood vessels there.

How an egg is made utube

Now let’s look in the egg quality handbook. The internal egg making factory and the digestive system ae two separate systems but they share a common point, the vent. When a hen lays an egg a portion of the egg making tract extends outside her body through the vent to vent to isolate that system from the other. That keeps poop off of the egg.

But it is possible a roundworm can migrate from the digestive tract where it normally lives up the egg making system and get trapped in an egg. It’s really rare but it can happen.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/1/egg-quality-handbook/35/roundworms-in-eggs/

MrsJones you might look at that photo that shows the roundworm in an egg. You can see that they are not that faint, what you are seeing is probably the chalazea like Canoe mentioned but it doesn’t hurt to check.

Your vet may not look at eggs but he/she should be able to do a fecal float and tell you if your chickens have worms. If not, call your county extension agent and see if they can tell you somewhere you can get the test done. The white blob on their poop is actually their urine, they dispose of urine differently than we do. But if you are seeing white structures in the poop it’s worth getting it checked out.

Canoe, I did not know you were an instructor. Do I need to start calling you Professor?

 

[Tgavin05]

My sister sent me this picture of an egg she got at the grocery store. She said that even though the strands appear yellow in the pucture they were white.

 

[aart]

Hello,

I've only had hens since mid-May. I am wondering if anyone has advice on how to tell between natural egg structures and possible worms. I haven't found any good info online. My black Australorp had small amounts of blood on her first couple eggs, as well as in her stool for a couple days. I am aware this is normal in new layers, but I have also read it can be a sign of parasites. So I started studying her poop and thought one of the two days it looked as if it might have thin white structures in it.

That led me to start analyzing her eggs when I crack them open and there have been the thinnest white, thread-like structures here and there in the albumen. They basically look like the most delicate cellophane noodle fragments. Some free-range eggs I buy have also had this. Is there any way to tell if this is just a normal structure of the egg, such as that white membrane you sometimes see around the yolk, or worms? I don't see it in my other two layers' eggs and none of the area vets will analyze my eggs as I've read they can easily do, similar to a fecal float test.

My husband doesn't see anything amiss and has been eating these eggs. There has not been blood in the stool or signs of anything odd after those initial couple of days in the earliest laying period other than these continued threads in the albumen. Oh, and her eggs are rather pointy, in case that's of any consequence. Thanks for any guidance!

Welcome to BYC!

Clear closeup pics of the eggs in question would help greatly.

Blood in the stool is usually coccidiosis from the protozoa coccidia overpopulating the digestive tract.

Some red tissue in the stool can also be normal shedding of intestinal lining, correct @ChickenCanoe ?

 

[Happy Chooks]

To further gross you out, here is the poop chart. It shows the difference between normal poop and not normal poop.
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=17568.0