silly question alert!! Egg wonderings

[the.fee.fairy]

my dad buys eggs from a farmer down the road and they come out all manner of strange shapes and sizes.

What i want to know is...are eggshells hard when they come out? or do they harden once they've been laid?

The reason i ask is because we have had some that look like the chicken stopped laying it halfway through, adn then carried on, and some have ridges and wrinkles in them. Any reason for this?

[Millymollymandy]

They are hard when they come out, although sometimes hens will lay soft shelled ones though that hasn't happened with mine (yet).

I don't know why there are sometimes wrinkles, ridges or lumpy bits but it is quite common!

[den_the_cat]

old or ill hens I think for misshapen eggs.

[Chickpea]

Beginner hens sometimes lay funny shaped eggs, or very small ones, whilst they are still "practicing". Probably these get rejected by the producers, and maybe go for the farmer's lunch, or to be used as ingredients in cakes or something, or perhaps they just go in the rubbish. But anyway we're all used to seeing a box of 6 identical perfect brown eggs from the shop so we don't realise they don't come out looking like that.

[Boots]

Check this out Fee,

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view.php/67795

[Shirley]

Great link - I've never seen an egg being laid before

[Stonehead]

Where to start?

Hens start by laying small eggs with thick shells if their diet is right. As they get older, the eggs get bigger so the shell gets thinner to cover the increasing size.

Eggs come in all shapes, with most being the ovoid everyone is familiar with. But, individual hens can have very individual eggs - one of our smallest Scots Grey hens lays spherical eggs while one of the larger ones lays ones that are very elongated.

Our ISA Browns, on the other hand, being commercial layers almost always lay perfectly standard eggs.

Dietary calcium deficiencies lead to hens producing eggs with thin shells, soft shells or even no shells. If the hen gets excited or stressed, she may force the egg out too soon, in which case the egg will not be properly formed.

Another cause of soft eggs is changes in the hen's blood acid. This gets a bit technical, but basically warm weather equals hen breathing faster equals less CO2 in her blood, equals more alkaline blood and calcium availability is reduced. Yes, calcium deficiency but in another form.

Ridges, more properly known as body checks, are caused when the egg cracks in the chicken's uterus. New shell then forms over the crack.

You can reduce body checked eggs by reducing overcrowding, keeping younger birds (it's more frequent in older birds) and reducing over-use of artificial lighting. Despite that, it will still happen (we have 20 hens in a 50-bird house, no artificial light and a mix of ages but we still get body checked eggs).

Various diseases also affect shell formation and egg quality, as well.

That will have to do for now as the timer is going on the cooker.

[the.fee.fairy]

thankyou for the info.

I knwo the eggs are those that are imprefect and therefore rejected by the shops, but they're still yummy! I waws just curious about the ridges and funny shapes.

I wish i could meet the hens now!

That video was cool...the egg just 'popped' out. I think i thought it was somehow different.

Ta very muchly

[Millymollymandy]

It's a shame the video didn't show the hen's face. You should see them laying - it's hysterical. They pull very funny faces and squeeze. They then turn around and inspect their egg.

Just like us having a poo!

[Chickpea]

Speak for yourself. I may or may not pull funny faces but I certainly don't inspect my poos.