posted 19 hours ago
It often happens that my hens are giving me an egg with extra calcium, and occasionally I get one without a shell. I always have calcium available to them, so I figure that they occasionally indulge in more than they should have. I have Black Cuckoo Marans and Isa Browns and a mix of the two.
The fact that in the same flock I have extra calcium on some and no shell on the other leads me to think that it is a 'personal choice', and there's not much I can do about it.
There is one hen (ISA Brown) I'm monitoring closely because she had a "blowout" (Bleeding hemorrhoids). I separated her from the flock or they would have killed her, picking at her butt. I put her on a no protein diet (Nothing but greens and a little grain, some grit but no calcium) to completely stop her egg laying, and she did, immediately.
Now, she is 'cured' from her blowout and after 2 weeks, she started laying again, but eggs with no shells.
I put her back with the flock and after a few days, she started laying normal eggs again. Yesterday, I saw an egg with a spot of blood, so I will have to check on her, just in case.(They say that once they blow out, they are more prone to blowing out again.)
I think that hens may have a way to monitor the eggs that they put out, but it is probably limited.
I noticed that the brown calcium is much easier to remove than the white. Occasionally, if I pick at the white eggs bumps, part of the shell is removed along with it, resulting in an egg that is not saleable.
The Black Cuckoo Marans make a darker shell, and occasionally, when I see something on their shell that I decide to scrub, the whole color comes off (along with the bloom, unfortunately).
They are perfectly OK but they end up looking light brown. When they occasionally scratch such an egg, you see the scratch marks an a lighter egg is revealed underneath.
Does anyone know when the color is added in the oviduct? Is it at the 'bloom adding stage' of the egg?
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