Eggs

The younger batch of chickens have started laying.  I'm not exactly sure which ones are all laying yet since I'm not home during the day to witness the act.  However, I have my suspicions on which ones they are.

How do I know they younger ones are laying?  I'm getting 6-7 eggs daily now yet about half are smaller than average - not that there's anything wrong with that.   Smaller eggs or double yolked eggs are very common in newly laying chickens.  Here are some fun facts about eggs.

Smaller eggs are the chicken god's way of preparing the chickens for pushing something large through the vent.

Double yolk eggs tend to occur when ovulation occurs too rapidly or when one yolk gets 'lost' on the way to the shelling station and is joined by the next yolk.  Basically, the newly laying chicken is still figuring out what's going on with its body.  I saw a lot of these with the first batch of chickens.  I've only seen one so far with the second batch

No yolk, or fart eggs, can seen in the very first egg a chicken lays.  The chicken decided to try laying before the body actually sent down a yolk to be enveloped.  Luckily, I haven't seen this yet.

Okay, 12 year-olds, here's another fun fact about no-yolk eggs.  Back in the 'olden days' (like when the Office Skeptic was a child), no yolk eggs were called cock eggs because it was thought that these eggs were laid by roosters.

No shell eggs are 'normal' in young hens.  They may lay a shell-less egg or two right as they begin to lay eggs for the first time, before their systems have "gotten into the groove" of laying.   The inner membrane is all that is around the yolk/white.  The hard outer shell didn't form.  I have actually seen two of these this week.  The first one was outside on the ground under where the window sleeping chickens are.  So I'm guessing it is one of them.  The second one was in the nesting box yesterday.  The first one was still in tact, but the shell was really soft - it felt like a water balloon.  The one yesterday, there was a partial shell and then a gooey mass in the shaving.  Kind of gross.

The other time this can happen is if there is a calcium deficiency.  I don't think this is the case as all the chickens are on layer fee, which has extra calcium.  To be safe, though, i am going to put extra oyster shells in the coop for a few days.  Supposedly, if a chicken is missing something from its diet, it will go searching for a source for the deficiency.