Speckled silkie eggs--laid by a different hen than the white ones?

[FenDruadin]

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I only have two silkie hens, both hatched this past summer. One is only just five months old, the other hatched in early Spring and has been laying for a couple months. (The older one helped raise the younger one after their mother was snatched by a raccoon--that has nothing to do with this post, but it's so sweet I had to share).

Anyway, we recently started finding speckled eggs, like the top on in the picture, when we'd previously only gotten cream-colored ones like the bottom egg.

Does this mean our younger hen is now laying?

My 8-year-old collects the eggs during the week, and he's not always very consistent in finding them, so we don't know yet whether we've ever had two in the same day. Also, it IS December, and some days we don't get any eggs at all. I'd love to know if little Dixie is laying!

Thoughts? Thanks!

 

[Poultry Couture]

I can probably only get the answer to this question here so lemme ask this....

My bantam silkie hen laid TWO eggs her first time! They were the size of a barred rock egg and the same color...? Any ideas?

Also, sorry don't know the answer to your question! :/

 

[Den in Penn]

To OP: You probably have both laying. While any tinted or colored egg can be speckled by a hen then not the next time, they tend to consistently speckle the egg.

To PoultryCouture: They sometimes do lay two in one day. However the second egg mostly has something wrong or is smaller. Add the fact that they are the size of Barred Rock eggs, her first eggs and she is a bantam which lay smaller eggs and I really doubt she laid them. Could another hen have laid them? Or do you have a prankster living near the coop?

 

[FenDruadin]

Awesome! I'm glad they're both laying. We had a bit of an emotional time with them. While she was only two weeks old, her mother (and one sister) was dragged out of the coop and eaten by a raccoon (my mistake--left it open overnight--so sad). I almost brought her in the house, but her (half-grown but not adult) sister was acting protective so I waited and watched, and sure enough--her sister adopted her!

She looks just like their mother. <3

Now I have two hens again, and I'm so excited they'll be making babies next spring! Yay!

 

[Poultry Couture]

Lol no pranksters here! She was the only chicken old enough to lay unless a 3 month old Japanese bantam or a 1 month old silkie bantam ROO could have laid it lol! It had to be her! I have barred rocks, but they're in a completely different pen....?

 

[Den in Penn]

I see a ? at the end of your post. Does that mean that there is a possibility that the BPRs are using the bantams pen to lay? During free range time?

 

[Poultry Couture]

I'm saying that I don't think they could get in there. It's a rabbit hutch so it's got all the little latches and stuff.