Wrinkled or Mis-Shaped Eggs, Ever had one? Infectious Bronichitis Info

[2-acre-zoo]

Thanks Steffpeck, this is exactly like the eggs one of my poor brown hens has laid for the last 2 days....none of the flock seem to have respiratory problems, but I will check tonight when they are roosting. I read that it could be heat related and we are having very heavy, thundery heat for the last week - before that, constant sun. Hopefully the rest of them won't get it too badly - I don't see the point in antibiotics with such a small flock (10), so I'll let nature take it's course. The egg didn't look edible, what with all the wrinkles, but the inside was fine so it was scrambled!

 

[KellyandKatie]

very helpful, thank you

 

[ncastromayor]

Thank you for this. I don't have any wrinkled eggs, but the colour has diminished on some, laying has almost come to a halt, have some pimply eggs. About 80% of my flock hasn't started to lay yet but should over the next month or so, so I am really relieved that they are safe for the most part. I have 68 hens. We also had some bumblefoot and an outbreak of lice (probably because their immune system was down). Thanks to some great posts the lice are all gone and I've done the bumblefoot surgery and will now wait for the IB to run it's course, it's been about 5 weeks now :s

Thanks for the great info

 

[Erica]

I'm no vet, but wanted to raise a caution about presuming recovered birds are no longer infectious. When my flock had apparent IB (suspected to have come by a bought-in carrier) it was quite an acute disease with very obvious symptoms of rattles, rales, mucus and general unwellness (the quickness of disease spread, low mortality, severity of symptoms and ensuing permanent wrinkly eggs and runny albumen were also fairly indicative). I isolated that flock and when they were all apparently well again (after several weeks of seeing no respiratory signs, though of course the egg shell issues seemed permanent) I brought in some new layers. These new birds all caught the disease and went on to have eggshell and other problems. I tried 3 times to raise chicks to laying age only to have them catch IB on the way and not be able to lay properly when the time came.

Finally, reluctantly, I culled and cleaned the pens. After about two weeks I bought replacements. They never ever caught or showed symptoms of IB (over about 5 years). I feel it's impossible to know where the original disease came from, but I do suspect it was brought in by a carrier-chicken and not by wild , or I feel I would have seen the disease again.

This is from the Merck Veterinary Manual (http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/206500.htm):

'Naturally infected chickens and those vaccinated with live IBV may intermittently shed virus for many weeks or even months. Virus infection in layers and breeders occurs cyclically as immunity declines or on exposure to different serotypes.'

I don't mean to contradict expert veterinary advice, but I do feel there's good reason to be cautious about seemingly-recovered birds.

Best wishes,
Erica (who no longer gets wrinkly eggs)

 

[Gmasandy]

Hello! I just searched for the wrinkled eggshell. Mine is just like the one you posted. What should I do for her? She has been laying long, large eggs, but just recently about half of each egg has been slightly wrinkled. tonite, however, I got an egg that looks a lot like the very wrinkled one in your picture. My girls are molting, so the amount of eggs we get has dropped way off. But this little hen, Oprah, just lays a long egg almost every day. Now a wrinkley, long egg. The girls all seem to be healthy, except for this. Is there something I should do for her? (them) PLEASE HELP!!

 

[Nutcase]

I think your hen is alright. We occasionally get werd-shaped eggs but our hens are fine most of the time. Once we got one shaped like an icecream - complete with swirly foam on top! yuck!

 

[Lilelfengurl]

Very interesting. I'll keep it in mind.

 

[CaCO3]

Can anyone help identify what's going on with my leghorn? She's about 1.5 y/o and has been laying lumpy shaped eggs, some are kind of flat-sided. Some are more normal than others. She seems ok other than really shaggy tail feathers. She was vaccinated for IB in the fall.

 

[CaCO3]

Anyone? Ideas?

 

[daniela]

I recently acquired 4 mistreated hen's from an egg farm. All were laying happily until I came across a very wrinkled though hard shelled egg. The hen that laid this strange egg lay's in the same place everyday. Since she laid this strange egg I have not had a reoccurrence.
The four hen's I acquired looked shocking, missing feather's, puffy eyes, almost white combs, forgetting how to walk and staying awake until 8pm at night! Now they are a bill of good health, with no sign's whatsoever of any illness. They are fed table scrap's and laying pellet's and appear to be as happy as, so I am sceptical about this 'bronchitis'.