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4:04 pm
Sun 23-Aug-09
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Help....my hens are in a big barn and the occasional bird does fly in but I have just found a very small egg in my hens nest area. It looks like a hens egg but is about 1 inch wide and 1.5 inches tall. It is a rich brown in colour. If it was one of the hens, is there a reason why she would suddenly lay an egg so small, or what other birds lay eggs like that?
Thanks
Polly
4:49 pm
Senior Class
Mon 14-Sep-09
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We had one of these too yesterday, think it's just the egg season kicking off, also had a HUGE double yolkers, but should settle down soon!!
"No-yolkers are called "dwarf", "wind" [or, more commonly, "fart"] eggs. Such an egg is most often a pullet's first effort, produced before her laying mechanism is fully geared up. In a mature hen, a wind egg is unlikely, but can occur if a bit of reproductive tissue breaks away, stimulating the egg producing glands to treat it like a yolk and wrap it in albumen, membranes and a shell as it travels through the egg tube. You can tell this has occurred if, instead of a yolk, the egg contains a small particle of grayish tissue. In the old days, no yolkers were called "cock" eggs. Since they contained no yolk and therefore can't hatch, our forebears believed they were laid by roosters."
7:39 pm
2nd Grader
Sat 19-Dec-09
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Hi,
We also had a small mid brown egg today, which we think was a first effort from yet another one of our hens.
One of our hens is laying every day now! However on Friday afternoon we had our first light brown egg
which we think came from our light sussex hen. The egg was perfect about 52g but not another egg since,
is this normal? one perfect medium size first egg and yet no more for three days.
We are in the south-east and the temperature has drop, yet we had two eggs today one being a new small one.
would like to know your comments.
10:50 pm
Supreme Being
Thu 24-Sep-09
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The hens will be laying erratically at the beginning of the season and if they are newly laying hens it will take time perhaps to get a real pattern. Not all hens lay every day. I have seven youngish hens and I'm getting 3 to 4 eggs a day just now. However I have two very old hens and I suspect my wee black hen is one of the layers. You never can tell. Today I had 1 brown egg, 1 white egg and 1 blue egg. It is all very interesting isn't it? Good fun too.
Old teachers never die, they just lose their class
12:11 am
Sat 12-Aug-06
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Hi, Polly, and welcome to the forum.
Like Adam's question (Grazychef) I think Raenbow and Danast are right. The laying season is especially late this year in the UK because of the cold weather and snow. Our chooks hate the snow and anything unusual weather-wise tends to upset their laying cycle. We discovered after a few months that hens are not laying machines! Any eggs at this time are treasured. It will all become more regular over the next few weeks so long as the weather settles back into the usual springtime cycle.
Never knowingly underfed
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