What Causes Speckling on Eggs?

[Flickster5]

Shrug. I can wash my eggs and not wash off speckling, especially when they're very tiny speckles, but if I really focus on the speckles and try to scrub them off, they do come off. Sometimes I'll be fixing a carton for someone I know would be weirded out by speckles and find myself with an egg with a LOT of tiny speckles on it...that one egg takes longer to wash than another dozen

 

[RustyBucketFarmGirl]

if you can rub off the speckles it's the dye on the egg, if not it could be calcium. this is only if the egg has been freshly laid
I've accidentally wiped off the dye on my welsummer eggs from my sweaty hands lol

Have found the opposite o be true! Lol. Extra calcium seems to rub off very easily when i wash and extra pigment does not. So interesting!

 

[chickpeasoup]

I have washed her eggs and the speckling doesn’t fade. The egg doesn’t have a bumpy texture so I don’t think they’re calcium deposits.

it really depends on how fresh the egg is and how rich the pigment is. if you really wanted to you could wash it off, but why would you yknow

 

[Brahma Chicken5000]

@nicalandia @The Moonshiner @sylviethecochin maybe you guys can shed some light on this?

 

[007Sean]

I know it’s not a calcium deposit I’m just curious if it’s deposited like the bloom or something. I’m also curious as to what determines the color of the speckles on the eggs.
Thank you for your reply though.

My understanding of the speckles are a result of the 'bloom', there was a thread about this awhile back, a week or two ago. I can't remember the the header for the thread but you can probably do a search and find it.

 

[FearlessFeather]

Welsummers lay speckled eggs. And freshly laid can wipe or scratch off. You can scratch lines in a regular brown egg when freshly laid. I have had some welsummer/ameraucana crosses. My current hen from this cross lays solid green eggs but has laid one green egg with brown speckles. My first of the cross which died unfortunately laid a blue egg with green speckles. I’m still playing around with them and white leghorns crossing. I’m kinda shooting for blue with green speckles while having a decent egg production layer. So the three way cross.