- Jul 24, 2012
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We have now found two UFOs in our nest box, and have been unable to solve this mystery.
The first UFO was about two weeks ago: my 6 year old went out to collect eggs and said, "mommy, there's something gross in the egg box!" I didn't go out to see, but Daddy did, and he said, " You gotta come see this." Okay. It looked like a large piece of ginger root. He likened it to a fetal pig. No, it did not have any animal characteristics; it was smoothish, light brown, and fairly solid. When he tried to pull it apart with two sticks, it had the consistency of cooked chicken. And it stunk to high heaven. At the time, we did not notice anything amiss with any of our five hens. We have not noticed a drop in egg production: we get an average of 4 eggs a day, but never five...
Chicken-expert cousin (blogs about chicken care), guessed that it was something the girls caught and decided not to eat, but that could only be the case if they also had access to an oven to cook it
as it was decidedly firm, not raw-meat'ish in the least.But later that day, we noticed that Opal's (2 year old silver-laced Wyandotte) backside/bottom is featherless, and red/irritated in spots. We have never seen the other girls pecking at her. She's middle of the pecking order. We thought maybe she was going down fast, but that was approx two weeks ago and her behavior is normal. I have not caught her in the egg box, but it's usually daughter's job to collect eggs.
#2 was today: daughter went out to collect eggs and got all excited. Mom! You have to see this! But she wasn't grossed out - she was delighted. It appeared to be a miniature egg, right next to the regular-sized eggs. But when I went to pick it up, it was not hard-shelled; it was sticky and squishy. Husband (man that he is!) squeezed it, and the contents were not raw-egg'ish, they were more like creamy frosting (sorry!). It looked like a large pinto bean.
Any ideas?
