red speckled eggs

[Tiger1951]

One of my Buff Orpington hens lays a light brown egg with red spots on the shell. Is this normal? Could it be blood spots?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Welcome to BYC -
Can you post a photo of one of these eggs? What you are seeing is most liekly just part of the normal variation in egg color that you can see. Blood spots that you will hear mentioned with regards to eggs are seen inside the egg - though you will occasionally see eggs with some streaks of blood on the outside of the shell which is really not anything to be terribly alarmed about until/unless it becomes a regular occurrence and/or is a large amount of blood.

 

[Oscar669]

Raising chickens is suprising every day, I found an brown egg this morning with red specks on the shell. What does this mean?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Raising chickens is suprising every day, I found an brown egg this morning with red specks on the shell. What does this mean?

The speckles don't really "mean" anything beyond you have a layer of speckled eggs. Do you have welsummers in your flock? That is one breed that comes to mind.

 

[Oscar669]

No we have Rhode Island reds, golden comets, Americans, Buckeyes, and one coo coo Moran.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

My money would fall on the marans

 

[donrae]

My money would fall on the marans

mine too.

That dark brown color that's so desired from Marans and Welsummers, etc is a coating the hen's body applies last in the egg shell production process. Sometimes it's a nice, even layer making the entire egg dark brown. sometimes, it's like her sprayer gets clogged (think of an unshaken can of spray paint) and the coating looks like this. And the same hen can lay both types, just to make things more confusing. My cuckoo Marans has just started laying again after weaning her brood. I've gotten two evenly colored eggs and one spattered like yours. Personally, I like the speckles! Once had a hen that laid green eggs with brown speckles, my kiddos called them camo eggs...



And here's eggs from my two different Welsummers



All part of the joy of having your own flock, and getting something besides the Nazi-identical store bought eggs

 

[Mac in Wisco]

If it's not a variation in shell coloring and actually looks like blood spots on the eggs, that's an indication that the hens may be infested with red fowl mites.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Raising chickens is suprising every day, I found an brown egg this morning with red specks on the shell. What does this mean?

my RIR s lay eggs that look just like that. Quite normal and personally I think pretty.