Topic of the Week - When eggs go wrong

[TattooedChicks]

No eggs yet, but I'm sure my dozen Banty babes will be throwing me all sorts of curveballs next spring once they get started.

I see lots of posts from production breeds, but does anyone have a regular problem with oddballs from small birds like OEGBs, Japs, silkies or the like?

 

[Lady of McCamley]

I don't worry on any odd quality in a very new layer as you will get shell-less, odd shaped things for a week or so before the real eggs begin. However, there should be some normal eggs in between the abnormal eggs.

I do worry when steady layers suddenly have odd eggs. Anytime you suddenly see a number of birds in your flock doing strange things, it is a sign of illness. For example, in my case, I had a brown layer laying white or light colored, some wrinkly eggs from others, and others that appeared to have sand in the shells. Those types of eggs, flock wide, are a sign of Infectious Bronchitis or Newcastle.

I watch my older layers if their shells start getting really thin or if they begin to lay really, really large eggs regularly. Also, if an older layer suddenly starts laying shell-less eggs, I watch out for her. It can be a sign of aging or nutritional needs.

The small fairy eggs simply show end of season cycle. Occasional odd eggs on ramp up, between normal eggs, simply show the system coming on line.

Below are some photos I didn't worry about (but marveled). This particular one was simply wrinkled because it was so, very, huge. The Delaware was fine, and continued to lay extraordinarily large eggs her whole long life. And yes, it was a double yolker...2 very large yolks.

 

[Anisha]

I've gotten an egg that had THREE yolks in it before, I was astounded, it was a huge egg too, glad it didn't hurt the hen. This was from our old flock a long time ago, not the current one.

 

[HannahZuni]

I had gotten two weird eggs. The first time it was en egg with no shell just membrane and no yoke. I had gotten so scared that my favorite chicken had gotten sick, when I did some research I found out it was a wind egg and that a few of these were normal because she was a new layer. The second time I had 2 new layers (This was like 5 weeks after my wind egg layer) but they had layed tiny eggs that were very dirty. The eggs were the size of quail eggs and were as dirty as duck eggs. I never really found out where these eggs came from but we never got these small of eggs again.

 

[sheetmetaltom]

ive gotten double yokes extra large eggs paper thin shells and no shells, though none on a regular basis, so i dont really worry about it i feed pelleted food with scraps and some treats,they free range a couple of hours in the afternoon. i make calcium available to them every week. its usually gone in 3-4 days. plus i have 16 chickens but 9 different kinds so the eggs arent uniform for me

 

[hippiestink]

Most of mine are good quality eggs. From time to time I see cracked eggs and once I got a lash egg after my hen was sick for a while, but the weirdest egg I ever got was a truly astounding 115+ gram egg that turned out to be a double-yolker.

 

[SamSam]

We get some odd ones once in a while, the fart-egg, or an oddly shaped one. But this is, by far, the weirdest shell-less egg we have ever seen. We could give the egg a squeeze, and the little "finger" on top would bounce up and down.

 

[Izzychicky]

So weird

 

[apryl29]

These are our strangest eggs so far. We had a coyote incident & had a bunch of odd eggs for a while. Shell-less, soft shell. Not sure what happened w the yolk of the one. And the picture of the white egg next to the brown egg is the show size. The white egg is a store-bought large. I need to get a scale. Some of the eggs are huge.

 

[Dawnclucks22]

Once I went outside to find what was not quite a shell-less egg but one with a soft, pliable shell. Really weird. I also once found a wind egg with a yolk in it. I cooked it immediately and you should have seen my plate...