Rotten (fresh) egg

[Spencer5]

This morning I hard boiled 4 eggs. When I removed the shells one of them was green! And it smells off. Another has a hint of green and smells off as well. The other 2 are fine. Maybe these are from the same chicken... I have never encountered this before. Has anyone else? Help.

 

[igorsMistress]

This morning I hard boiled 4 eggs. When I removed the shells one of them was green! And it smells off. Another has a hint of green and smells off as well. The other 2 are fine. Maybe these are from the same chicken... I have never encountered this before. Has anyone else? Help.

How fresh is fresh? If the egg smells bad and it was laid the same day I would be concerned about the health of the chicken that laid it.

Or maybe there were tiny cracks in the eggs which let bacteria in.

 

[Spencer5]

I can't think of any way to know what chicken laid it (or them). I had not thought of cracks... I had trouble posting yesterday so had to do this a couple times and in the original I wrote that the eggs were approximately 3 weeks old but forgot when I had to re-write ):

 

[EggSighted4Life]

This morning I hard boiled 4 eggs. When I removed the shells one of them was green! And it smells off. Another has a hint of green and smells off as well. The other 2 are fine. Maybe these are from the same chicken... I have never encountered this before. Has anyone else? Help.

See this article.. Near the bottom.. Are the yolks green also? I know some feed stuff can turn them green. How would you describe the smell? How old are your birds? Were these eggs stored washed or unwashed and counter or refrigerated? How long have you been keeping chickens at this same property, are they confined or free range? How many hens total to try and discern from?

Says possibilities are pseudomonas bacteria or high levels of dietary B12..

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/common-egg-quality-problems.65923/

I will note.. the air cell is ONE indicator of freshness.. the green one is drawn down much farther than the white ones of the same age.. so there's definitely been *more* gas exchange taken place.. possibly due to micro cracks.

I didn't see it mentioned in that article, but there are other things that can effect flavor and presumably smell.. like feeding too much flax seed or meal worms is said to cause "fishiness".

I'm curious about the currently laid eggs, if any are like that.

Hope you do get answers, and that your birds are thriving!

 

[Spencer5]

OK, the yolks are not green. I'm sorry to say I can't describe the smell. At the time I just know it was off and not right. I have them in the fridge now so the smell isn't very strong. I think our birds that are laying range from 1-5 years old. Now that I think about it I can narrow it down to 4-5 hens. Not many are laying right now but I can hardly ever catch them when they do. The eggs were stored unwashed, on the counter. We have had birds at this property for about 6 years and they are mostly free range in our backyard. Flax or mealy worms wouldn't be the problem. I don't know about the pseudomonas... We definitely need to check more for tiny cracks. Thank you so much for the article you sent. I haven't seen that and I want to read it all. If you have any more thoughts please let me know. I sure appreciate it

 

[igorsMistress]

I can't think of any way to know what chicken laid it (or them). I had not thought of cracks... I had trouble posting yesterday so had to do this a couple times and in the original I wrote that the eggs were approximately 3 weeks old but forgot when I had to re-write ):

I would almost bet they had cracks in them that you couldn’t see in that case. Maybe check some laid today just to be sure. You can put different colors of lipstick or food dye on their vents and that will tell who, if anyone, laid a rotten egg if it happens again.

 

[Spencer5]

That is a great idea Thank you!