Poo with eggshell around it?

[fushalilly]

My hens are almost 19 weeks old and they should lay eggs any time now. They may be laying now and I just cant find them because they are free range. I found a poo and there was a paper-thin eggshell around it. What does this mean?

 

[arlee453]

Are you sure it was a shell, and not just hardened urates (that are white)

Of course some strange things can happen during egg laying start-up, but the egg production tract and the waste/intestinal tract are TOTALLY separate all the way up until the VERY end (the vent), and even then, when the egg is laid the end of the reproductive tract sort of turns inside out as the egg is being laid so that it never touches any residual poop.

In order for there to be poo inside an egg shell, someone or something would have had to shove poo WAAAYYY up inside the hen's reproductive tract. That's not going to happen on its own...