A friend recently tagged me on this Facebook photo and wanted me to explain to her friend what was going on with this egg.
It looks funny but it’s normal.
The short answer is that nothing is going on, that’s a perfectly normal egg. Go ahead and use it.
The longer answer is that when you lay an egg roughly every other day for years, there are likely to be occasional “blips.” Especially in the beginning.
If you’ve have chickens long enough, you’ll see misshapen eggs, lumpy eggs (calcium deposits), zombie eggs (shell-less eggs), fart eggs (starter eggs) and even eggs inside of eggs. Mistakes happen, not all of life is perfect and neither are some eggs. Everything is fine, as long as some of these problems don’t happen more than “once in a while” (for example, many zombie eggs might be an indication that your flock needs more calcium.)
What we have in the above photo is an unevenly pigmented egg. It also looks like a tiny bit of remnant yolk may have landed on the end of the shell. I’m not sure what breed or the age of the chicken is that laid it, but I’m willing to bet she’s a fairly new layer (although I have seen variations of this in older hens.) The process used by the chicken for putting down the egg’s pigment is still working out some kinks. Sometimes it takes a while for everything to come together and work properly, like, well, like just about everything else in life. That’s definitely an odd looking egg, but it’s one I wouldn’t hesitate to use.
Take a look at one of my marans’ eggs. Ruud is about a year old (so a relatively new layer) and while the color is slowly catching up, she still lays eggs that look a little tie-dyed.
I am assuming that her eggs will eventually be one color (and darker as she gets older), but for now, we look forward to getting (and consuming) each of Ruud’s multi-hued treasures.
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Wendy Thomas writes about the lessons learned while raising children and chickens in New Hampshire. Contact her at [email protected]
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