Rhode Island Red suddenly laying white eggs????

LeadHead

In the Brooder
8 Years
Apr 5, 2011
42
0
32
Ok, I'm stumped on this one. We have several laying hens, 8 of which are Rhode Island Reds and the other is a Americauna mix. We've had the Americauna for a couple of years now, and the Rhode Island Reds since a neighbor was slimming down his flock last summer. We also have 3 young Broad-Breasted Bronze turkey poults that are about 2 1/2 months old, one of which I THINK is a hen.
Since last summer we've consistently gotten brown eggs from the Rhode Islands and green eggs from the Americauna. For the last week or so, however, we have been getting a white egg pretty much every day, as well as the usual brown eggs and the almost-daily single green egg. WHAT in the world is going on here? Turkeys cannot possibly be laying at an age of 2 1/2 months, can they? Also, the egg is always in a nesting box which would be a bit difficult for the turkey to enter. The only diet change of late has been the addition of some wild game bird starter crumbles (28% protein) to the layer crumbles since we've started feeding the turkeys with the chickens.
Anybody have an idea of what's going on? We are quite perplexed.
 
Eggs lighten up over the course of the laying "season" prior to the big yearly molt. Sometimes, they can seem almost devoid of color, almost chalky. Maybe that's what's happening. That goes for brown as well as green and blue egg layers.
 
Yes, the rest of the brown eggs that we're getting appear to be a little bit lighter than their darkest phase, but these white ones are about as white as you can get. Plus, are we that far into the laying season to make that much of a difference? It does not seem to have been a gradual thing, but rather last week we all of a sudden began to get a white egg each day. We've had chickens for several years and have never before had this happen.
 
Well, unless someone else snuck into your coop, it would have to be one of your usual layers, right? Should go back to the normal color eventually. The season depends on when the hens molted and when in the year they molt depends on when they were hatched because the first big molt is around 18-20 months old, no matter what time of year it is.
 

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