How common is it for a chicken to lay an egg without a shell? Mine do it once every couple of months or so. Happened yesterday so I thought I'd check it out here. Really weird feeling...trying to hold one in your hand. Just the membrane, no hard shell. Is this a calcium problem or just a fluke of nature?

Russ

-- (imashortguy@hotmail.com), January 17, 2002

Answers

My ducks have laid a few of them, too -- very weird! I sent one over to a friend's 8 year old son...what could be cooler at that age? Another oddity I came across in the frying pan: I cracked a normal-looking egg into the frypan, and in addition to the normal yolk & white, there was a miniature egg in a membrane, like about the size of a quartzie. Kinda cute, but they were eggs for the dogs' breakfast anyway.

-- snoozy (bunny@northsound.net), January 17, 2002.

Nothing worse than cracking an egg into the frying pan and finding a fully feathered chick inside....UGH !!!!! (probably froze to death in frige !!) Ah...the joys of homesteading !!! (and I wonder why my sister doesn't come to visit me ???)

-- Helena (windyacs@npacc.net), January 17, 2002.

Here is what the problem is with soft shell or no shell eggs. Chickens need the minerals to produce the shell. The shell is mostly calcium which is why you need to suppliment the chickens diet with oyster shell (avaiable at the feed store).

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), January 17, 2002.

Can't both the very soft shelled egg and the egg within the egg both be caused by stress? Apparently the egg within the egg is very rare. Another interesting one is the egg without the yolk. Some people call them wind eggs, some call them 'rooster' eggs. They're just another fluke. In my layers last summer I had one girl that would lay the soft egg outside, it would break, and the others would descend on the treat before you really knew what happened. It taught a couple of the others to be egg eaters, and was part of the reason why the entire bunch were replaced!

-- Bernadette Kerr (bernadette_kerr@hotmail.com), January 17, 2002.

Helena, got a good chuckle on that one!

-- Sandie in Maine (peqbear@maine.rr.com), January 17, 2002.

Helena, that's the sort of reason that apprentice chefs are taught to break each egg individually into a small bowl (a cup will do) and check it before adding it to whatever. Not many things worse than breaking the 47th egg of a 4-dozen-egg batch into the big bowl, and finding it's off.

-- Don Armstrong (from Australia) (darmst@yahoo.com.au), January 17, 2002.

also a good idea to candle your eggs before storing.

-- carol (kanogisdi@yahoo.com), January 17, 2002.

Occasionally one of my Pekin ducks lay eggs with a very soft, mostly membrane, shell. Either it is broken still in the nest or out of the nest mostly eaten. Usually there are 3 or 4 this way, then no more for a month or so. I believe it is because she is not eating the oyster shell available at all times. Perhaps she understands my threatening to make duck soup.

-- Duffy (hazelm@tenforward.com), January 17, 2002.

I understand the part about the minerals but how do you explain it when one chicken of a flock lays soft eggs and noone else does. They all eat the same thing but this one chicken always laid soft ones. I never could figure it out. From the double yolk thread I also had two chicken who consistantly laid double yolkers. These were big chickens and the eggs were big too!

-- Susan northern MN (nanaboo@paulbunyan.net), January 17, 2002.

Think of making an egg as a sort of in-chicken assembly line. Sometimes something happens to prevent the shell part from happening. It can be a lack of calcium (maybe she doesn't LIKE oyster shells) or it can be something wrong with the hen at that part of the assembly line. Sometimes when a hen is shocked at just the wrong time in her egg production cycle, she'll lay a weird egg the next day. If you have a hen that is laying soft-shell eggs all the time, she is the only one with this problem, and she does it consistently I think it's time for a good hearty chicken soup.

-- Sheryl in Me (radams@sacoriver.net), January 18, 2002.

Hah. How timely. One of my three daily layers did this just a couple of days ago. I'd never seen it before (only had the chooks since last Easter). Mine are free ranging, so I only give them oyster shell now and again when I remember... surely "wild" chooks don't get fed oyster shell, so why would mine need it? Don't they pick up calcium just by pecking at the ground? I'm leaning towards my chicken having been shocked by something. Have to see if it happens again.

-- Lucy (terraview2@yahoo.com), January 18, 2002.

Dear madam and Sir, the day I got a wrinkly egg and I'm wondering why it happens. And my chooks have hardley and fearthers on them and they are laying huge eggs 60g are normal, I found one chooks coop that was 90g I had 95g too. a rode island red sussex cross. I can pick them up too. and they call me to take them to bed

-- Bruce John Purvis (thelongyard@bigpond.com), March 14, 2002.

Dear madam and Sir, the day I got a wrinkly egg and I'm wondering why it happens. And my chooks have hardley and fearthers on them and they are laying huge eggs 60g are normal, I found one chooks coop that was 90g I had 95g too. a rode island red sussex cross. I can pick them up too. and they call me to take them to bed from bruce

-- Bruce John Purvis (thelongyard@bigpond.com), March 14, 2002.