Sand inside eggs?

[dancesWchickens]

I noticed recently that my hens' eggs each has one very tiny spot of crunchy stuff in the thick part of the albumen. I'm not talking about blood or meat spots, and I know what the germinal disc and chalazae are; these tiny crunchy bits are different. My girls are free-range (100%) and very healthy; they eat mainly my garden plants supplemented with organic scratch, organic pellets, oyster shell, and organic flax seed. Anyone know what these bits are? Too much calcium maybe?? I'll try to get a photo and post...

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

interesting, what color is it?

 

[dancesWchickens]

yucky grayish brown

 

[GreenGoddess]

I have not found these in any of the eggs I've gotten from Ruby but I have found them in store bought eggs.. I've always thought it was a calcium deposit.. If you eat sardines then you will understand when i say it has the same consistency of a piece of bone you would crush between two fingers.. Very soft but gritty.. I am kinda curious to see if anyone has any ideas since all of the web sites I've found on eggs and problems with eggs has nothing about this..

Goddess

 

[dancesWchickens]

Yeah I can't find anything about them either. Crumbly is right on. They're tiny but weird...hopefully someone on this forum knows what they are.

 

[dancesWchickens]

OK I got an egg with several of these thingys in it so I had to take some photos.

In the photos below, I pulled a couple of the thingys out of the white and photographed them in macro. They look truly disgusting at this magnification, sorry but I really want to know if anyone can identify them. In the photo on the right, you can see the crumbly stuff in the middle of the one I broke apart. What ARE these things???? If they are calcium deposits, how do they get in the egg white? My chickens are ridiculously healthy. They mostly eat plants and bugs in my garden, but I set out organic pellets, scratch, flax seed, oats, and oyster shell, plus the occasional scrap of homemade bread. They eat whatever combination of these things that they want at all times because they are 100% cage-free. Is it possible they are eating too much of the oyster shell?

 

[Mahonri]

glad none of my girls have that in their eggs.

Almost like kidney stones.

Maybe they are making pearls....

 

[dancesWchickens]

They do look like kidney stones...do chickens get those?

 

[Cindiloohoo]

Chicken proteins can cause kidney stones. That's all I know. I have had a few eggs with a speck in them as well. Mine free range. Maybe they are just picking something up on the ground? I am trying to look it up, but I keep getting human kidney stone info that says chicken meat protein can cause kidney stones....

ETA: Oh, and that KFC Popcorn chicken looks like a kidney stone

with a pic for comparison

 

[lambchicks]

Mine have the darker color things, but ususally just one per egg, maybe 1 out of 10 eggs. We are having preditor issues, so not much free ranging right now.