What the heck is this?

[Messipaw]

To me it looks like a lash egg. One of my hens laid one. It looks almost like a hard boiled egg with extra yolk inside. Check out the chicken chick's website. She explains a lot. My hen was fine after she laid it. Some trouble laying consistently after. Hope this helps.

 

[Hens rule]

I visited the link to the Chicken Chick and read about the Lash Eggs.  She mentioned euthanizing the entire flock.  Does this mean that this infection is contagious to the rest of our hens? We have 17 hens. I have no idea who this thing came from.  Can the entire flock be treated with antibiotics?  I am going to go and take a cross section pic of the thing now.

I can say that last week when I collected the eggs, I found a perfectly formed egg without a shell.  It was contained by nothing more than the membrane.  We have had 1 soft shelled egg in the nest box periodicly since they began to lay. This was the first time we had one with no shell at all. I hope that it isn't what everyone thinks it is.  I don't want to lose one hen, let alone our whole flock. They are our pets.

The infection which causes Lash eggs is not contagious and can't spread to other hens.

Lash eggs are caused by a bacterial or virus infection and are a inflammatory problem in her oviduct. If she gets antibiotics amediantly the inflammation may go away. You don't have to treat them all only that hen has it, only treat her with antibiotics.