Last night after Trevor and I watched “The Walking Dead” – a great new series about the Zombie Apocalypse – he went out to hen house to lock the birds up for the night.
He came back into the house holding something and in a worried voice, said, “Mom, I think this is bad, you need to look at this.”
Not the kinds of words any mom wants to hear especially at 11:00 at night.
“Here” – he said, “hold out your hand.”
Into my outstretched palm he carefully placed a fully-sack-enclosed chicken zombie brain.
Not really, but after watching that show, it might as well have been.
Your brain on eggs.
What he had brought into the house was a “shell-less egg”.
I had heard about these but hadn’t seen them (not even at the State Fair demonstration). Basically it was a soft shell around an egg. And when I say soft, it felt almost like a thin Dr.’s glove around a blob of jelly. You could poke it. You could bend it (sort of).
As far as playthings go, it was actually kind of neat.
But neat or not, it was certainly cause for alarm. It was not a normal egg and as such we needed to look into what was causing it to happen.
On Backyard Chickens (one of the best sources for all things chickens) there are a few discussions about shell-less eggs, reasons for these include:
- Not enough calcium (oyster shell)
- New layers or sometimes old layers
- This sometimes happens during molting season
These kinds of eggs can “break” during transit causing a sort of tangled mess in your butt situation which is why you should be careful to inspect the vents (eggs laying part of the bum) of all your birds (if you, like we – don’t know which bird laid the egg) to make sure nothing is caught or impacted.
Here comes the “if-then” statement about shell-less eggs – The general understanding is that if the nutrition is good, and if the birds are safe, protected, and not sick, then this is basically something that just “occasionally” happens. Although we need to keep our eye on the situation (Marc is going out to get more Oyster shell that co-incidentally ran out yesterday) unless we start seeing more of these it’s not cause for alarm.
And from what I’ve also read, having a shell-less egg is also in no way a harbinger of the approaching Zombie apocalypse.
We can all rest a little easier now.
NH.com
Lessons Learned from the Flock 
One of Mrs. Zarelli’s chickens once laid a shell-less egg in my doll carriage, and they weren’t concerned about it at all. I, on the other hand, was none too pleased.
I’ve seen one or two over the past couple years, never was a problem. Really really weird though!
Not sure if I mentioned this to you when we visited your coop long ago, but my dad once told me about a phenomena he had observed in Cajun Louisiana (not that Cajuns had anything to do with it, but it’s a colorful detail to add) where they would sometimes crack an egg and find an egg inside it. Not a double yolk, a whole extra egg. Ever heard of this?
Rick,
Actually that’s one thing I can wrap my head around better than this shell-less egg. I’ve heard of double eggs but haven’t gotten one in our flock yet.
Think of double eggs as chicken hail. Hail is frozen rain that keeps getting kicked back up into the clouds at which point more frozen rain is added. Pretty soon you have a chunk of ice the size of a “golf ball” denting your car.
A chicken is always in egg production – every other day there’s another egg – come rain or sleet or even if another egg is still stuck up there (there could be a kink in the tubing, the chicken could be sluggish, sick, or the egg could be large and stuck). In any event, the chicken’s insides don’t know the difference between a yolk up there or a fully formed egg – it’s job is to create a shell around the object and try to pass it on. What you end up getting sometimes is double eggs. I’ve actually even read about triple eggs.
The problem with this of course is that sometimes the eggs get too large to pass and then the bird will die (unless you have immediate vet treatment).
Makes for a cool story though.
Wendy
I have found them on occasion and it’s never been a problem. However, I never did factor in zombies until today….yikes!
One of my hens once laid a similar egg and when I checked her vent, we found a piece of another one hanging out. Her vet recommended that I soak her in warm, soapy water to get the soft egg out and it worked like a charm. An easy solution to avoid big, big problems down the road…
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We have had the same problem with one of our hens .She seems fine but her eggs have no shell.They are free range with treats now that itis winter. She is less then a year old. Seems like when she is needing to laying egg she stays in nest box or away from the other hens. We have 4 hens 2 bared rocks 1 light brama and the shell less buff.
To the eye she looks very healthy.Bright eyes glossy feathers and active.
Except when she needs to lay egg.