Was it a chick?

[LittleBits]

Yesterday, I found a strange thing in the poo-board. I wish I had taken a pic of it, but of course, my mind didn't work that fast...

Occasionally I've found a shell-less egg in there in the morning along with the poo.

Yesterday, what appeared to be a broken, shell-less egg was there and it did not have a yolk - it had what looked like an already formed chick. The head was there and a mass of tough (skin?, shell? IDK...) under the head.

Is it even possible that a hen could've kept an egg inside her until the chick was this far along and then pop it out?

This sounds crazy but what else could've it been? It really did look like a chicken formation. We have 11 hens, get 5-9 eggs/day.

 

[BantamLover21]

Yesterday, I found a strange thing in the poo-board. I wish I had taken a pic of it, but of course, my mind didn't work that fast...

Occasionally I've found a shell-less egg in there in the morning along with the poo.

Yesterday, what appeared to be a broken, shell-less egg was there and it did not have a yolk - it had what looked like an already formed chick. The head was there and a mass of tough (skin?, shell? IDK...) under the head.

Is it even possible that a hen could've kept an egg inside her until the chick was this far along and then pop it out?

This sounds crazy but what else could've it been? It really did look like a chicken formation. We have 11 hens, get 5-9 eggs/day.

Hens don't "hold" eggs inside of them and incubate them that way, or at least I've never heard of them doing so. Is there a hidden nest where one of your hens could have hidden some eggs and then carried one, accidentally (some hens get eggs stuck beneath their wings and end up moving them) onto the roost? Have you noticed any signs of broodiness? Were there any recognizable features on the "head" (eyes, beak, etc.)?

While there is a small chance that it was a chick, I think that it is more likely that the "chick" in the egg was tissue from the oviduct. Sometimes, tissue from the ovary or oviduct gets a shell and membranes put around it, with the result being a yolkless egg filled with a skin-like substance.

 

[LittleBits]

I have never seen a chick while in formation, so I couldn't say for sure about the features. It did look like a miniature chicken head of an adult chicken, maybe 1/4-1/2" long, the rest of it was just like you said - looked like a bunch of tangled tissue. Must be that's what it was then. I am going to be looking up about the anatomy of their insides after this finding!

Thanks so much for replying. I just thought that if a hen was eggbound that may be it could've incubated... but I guess an eggbound hen acts pretty sick? (Obviously, I'm still new at all this!!)

 

[AmericanMom]

I have never seen a chick while in formation, so I couldn't say for sure about the features. It did look like a miniature chicken head of an adult chicken, maybe 1/4-1/2" long, the rest of it was just like you said - looked like a bunch of tangled tissue. Must be that's what it was then. I am going to be looking up about the anatomy of their insides after this finding!

Thanks so much for replying. I just thought that if a hen was eggbound that may be it could've incubated... but I guess an eggbound hen acts pretty sick? (Obviously, I'm still new at all this!!)

An eggbound hen will act very sick, We had to put ours down after about 4 days because I couldnt handle watching her suffer.. I dont think they last very long being egg bound, not long enough for a chick to form that well atleast.