white coated egg

[gibsterl]

So my hens have just started laying in the last week after a 2 month hiatus from a hard moult and shortening days, today I had an egg that had alot of white coating on it-almost like it was encrusted in calcium-I washed it and it came off easily, I unfortunately didn't get a picture. All my ladies' vents look healthy-any ideas?

 

[Kelsie2290]

AllTech has a picture of what it lists as calcium deposits (second row on the right), I get eggs that look like that periodically, usually does seem to be in hens that aren't real good layers, or ones that are just starting up again ... think it mostly has to do with getting the egg laying system in gear again. Unless you have multiple birds doing it, or one hen doing it a lot, (then look at other causes) would chalk it up to something going on with the one hen at the time....
http://www.alltech.com/sites/default/files/alltech-egg-shell-quality-poster.pdf

 

[gibsterl]

Kelsie2290,
Definitely what I saw-what a great chart! Thanks for your help.

 

[SD Bird Lady]

Some chickens leave a thicker layer of bloom on their eggs. It is a protective coating that keeps the eggs from absorbing bacteria. It is the same reason that it is suggested not to wash eggs.

 

[gibsterl]

I understand about bloom and normally I never wash eggs, but this was an unusual amt of coating, and really looked like a calcium layer t(almost like lime scale) hat was not completely coating the egg but nearly was, I could chip some of it off with my finger. I only washed it to see if it would come off easily.

 

[gibsterl]

Also-no new hens in my flock for a year-so this is a new occurrence-which is what made me curious.

 

[Happy Chooks]

If it was bumpy, it's excess calcium.

 

[BelleFarm]

Are these calcium deposits? This one hen has always laid eggs like this. These four are from different days - plus a few pics with welsummer eggs for comparison.

 

[Happy Chooks]

That looks like a heavy bloom. I have some hens that do that too.

 

[gibsterl]

mine looked the same-and haven't had any since I posted....so a heavy bloom makes sense to me. Others suggested too much calcium but if that was the case would have expected my eggs to have the white coating as an ongoing issue