Rotten eggs

[Jojo1982]

Hi!
I have 9 ex-batt girls and recently we've been getting the odd rotten egg. They are fresh, no obviously damage to the shell but are completely black inside and the smell is possibly the worst thing I've ever come across.

All hens seem ok (apart from one who is broody at the moment) but I am guessing one might have an infection.

But we get 8 eggs a day, which I assume is from each chicken not including the broody one. But we maybe get one rotten egg a week. Surely if she had a bad infection every egg she laid would be like that?

Does anyone have any other ideas of what might be causing this, and practical ideas of how to isolate the hen laying these?

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. There could be a bacterial infection such as staphylococcus, pseudomonas, or others in the hen laying those eggs. There is a good article if you search at the top of this page called"Common Egg Quality Problems" that you may want to read.

 

[Jojo1982]

I read that article thanks. Pseudomonas tends to make eggs green so it can't be that.

From reading some scientific papers, it sounds like either proteus or aeromonas. But I have two worries.

How do I identify and isolate poorly chook so we can give her antibiotics?

All of her eggs must surely be infected even if they're not all black. But we don't know which eggs are hers. So does this mean we should be throwing away all eggs?