" the action of laying one egg was in itself a difficult or painful thing for a hen, regardless of the hen's type and the number of times she will lay in a year"
It is interesting you should raise this @ManueB , because my top hen, 5 yrs old and a decent layer of good eggs over all those years, produced an egg with a significant blood streak of the sort I normally only see from pullets laying their first. And it was not her first egg this season, but her fourth or fifth. Nor was it unusually large (about 55g if I remember aright). Her vent seemed fine, and the next egg had a little blood smear. Her behaviour is normal, so I'm inclined to not worry about it. But I did wonder if it hurt laying them. Maybe she is losing some elasticity in the oviduct...unless anyone else knows what it's likely to be?
It is interesting you should raise this @ManueB , because my top hen, 5 yrs old and a decent layer of good eggs over all those years, produced an egg with a significant blood streak of the sort I normally only see from pullets laying their first. And it was not her first egg this season, but her fourth or fifth. Nor was it unusually large (about 55g if I remember aright). Her vent seemed fine, and the next egg had a little blood smear. Her behaviour is normal, so I'm inclined to not worry about it. But I did wonder if it hurt laying them. Maybe she is losing some elasticity in the oviduct...unless anyone else knows what it's likely to be?