Topic of the Week - When eggs go wrong

[WallacetheKhakiCampbell]

I got an egg with a lot of red color in the white. Like blood almost. Hasnt happened since. Any ideas? Other than that I get doubles from time to time besides a duck I have that lays double tolles eggs the majority of the time! I’ve also gotten a few shell less eggs that was quickly fixed with a bit more oyster shell in their diet.

 

[aart]

I got an egg with a lot of red color in the white. Like blood almost. Hasnt happened since. Any ideas?

Blood spots are from a blood vessel breaking when ova is released from follicle.
Sometimes it's enough to stain the albumen(whites).

 

[Rhodebar Lover]

Thought I'd show one of my more... interesting eggs

 

[Show Sebright]

Duck egg from an old old elderly lady. No shell!!!

 

[Katz222]

View attachment 1138185
Pic by @wildpeas​

With approximately 2% of eggs laid by hens not quite making "egg box quality", chances are most of us at some point put our hands in a nest box and went "What the ?!?!?!!" Or worse, cracked an egg into the frying pan...

This week I would like to see and hear about when your hens got egg laying very wrong. Be it multiple yolkers, soft shelled eggs, or unidentifiable offerings. What did you get, what is "normal" and when do you start worrying?


For a complete list of our Topic of the Week threads, see here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/topic-of-the-week-thread-archive


For some of the most common egg problems and causes see this article on Common egg quality problems

My mom swears one of her hens birthed a chick instead of an egg. She said it was the size of her thumb nail. It was gooey and had a beak and feet. The head was smaller than a pencil eraser. She went to check for eggs and found it in the afternoon egg layers nesting box. I wish she had gotten a pic. Nothing since other than double yolkers and really large eggs.

 

[Fishback]

Not

yet!

I have!

 

[micstrachan]

Yes, I’ve seen a few things. My Brahma lays lots of fart/fairy eggs. When she was a pullet, she had lots of days of two back-to-back eggs without shells (literally one right after the other). My California White (3/4 Leghorn, 1/4 Barred Rock) has been laying eggs without shells or with brittle shells for quite some time. My Blue Laced Red Wyandotte often has a wrinkled tip to her eggs. Of course, I see the occasional chalky egg, speckled egg, or when they are first sorting things out, huge double yolker. Nothing too crazy has graced their nest boxes yet.

 

[MommaHen1996]

I get a bunch of weird shaped eggs from my Bielefelders....I mean double Yorkers all the time....and weird o long ones over 3 inches. Here’s a couple in the basket now. But I’m not complaining I get about a dozen and a half from them a week, and I only got 3 of em. My cream legbar laid the tiny dirty blue one -.- and my may lay EE mix has yet to lay. I will be very excited to see her eggg weirdness lol.

 

[SueT]

A couple of fairy eggs next to a normal sized egg. The larger fairy egg had no yolk, the tiny one had a tiny yolk!

A wrinkled egg from a young hen who continues to lay eggs with slight wrinkles, all her eggs. I will not use her for breeding.
They all get free choice oyster shell....

 

[Daniellebell1]

So, these aren't weird in and of themselves, but just about every day, I'm getting one egg with a hole pecked into it. (I mean...I'm assuming it's been pecked, but I've never caught anyone in action.) I suspect Zippy, the meanest and broodiest of my 4 hens, but really it could be any of them. Would a hen do this to her own egg? I thought at first they were just somehow cracking in the coop, but the shells are really decently tough. And I never know if it's ok to eat these or not. The membrane is intact, but the outer shell isn't.