Chicken laying weird shape egg died.

[raiford921]

Long story a little shorter. We just began keeping chickens in January. Initially we bought 6 RIR, the. My nieces wanted "zebra chickens" so we bought 4 barred rocks from the same individual a month later. Well we knew one of the rock hens was older. She had a defined comb and waddle, was coming out of molt and was bigger. She laid the biggest eggs of all and within the last few weeks has been laying eggs with a weird ring, like an egg with a spare tire.

Off course the pic doesn't do it justice. Well, we had a hen go broody and we hatched 5 chicks two weeks ago. This older hen laid an egg yesterday and went into a nest box this morning and stayed all day and wouldn't roost tonight, so I thought she was going broody. I had dreams about chickens and chicks and remembered I had the coop fan on (temps are dropping tonight in south alabama). I woke up, went out and cut off the fan, checked on the hen in the nest box and she was dead.

Just wondering if anyone else has came across this before. Was it natural? Do hens sometimes lay weird eggs before dying? Was she sick? She seemed just fine, laid almost everyday, always eating and scratching, acting just right. Then she got in the box all comfy and died.

 

[SweetLilChicken]

I don't completely know, but...
did she have enough calcium to produce her eggs properly? like some shell grit or something?
Sometimes you cant see it but there may be a disease in your chicken.
Scaly leg mite killed my chicken, her eggs were coming out really small and her legs were all shimmy and yucky.

I hope you can find out the case,
Phoebe

 

[SweetLilChicken]

Also, you can look up some diseases that might have killed your chicken.

take care

 

[raiford921]

Thanks for the reply. I told my wife this site rocks!!! I've almost always seen peoples concerns or emergencies answered within minutes.

She didn't seem to have anything wrong with her. I check them out thou roughly every other weekend when I dust them with DE. Like I said she ate fine, she acted normal, and she continued to lay eggs. Every so often I bake our egg shells, crush them up and throw them out to the hens. Plus I have crushed oyster shells that I mix in their feed and throw out occasionally in certain areas of the yard. All of the other hens (19) eggs are fine.

 

[SweetLilChicken]

so she had a good amount of calcium and No diseases.
Im not so sure what could have happened? Well I hope you can find out soon! Poor girl.
And I do love this site too!

 

[Mickey Lou 04]

I know that so,etimes hens will lay an egg that is just to big and they have vent prolapse, did you examine her well after she died?

 

[raiford921]

I haven't examined her yet. Like I said, I was dreaming about my chicks and chickens when I woke up remembering the fan was on. So I went out to turn it off and found her dead at 11:30 pm. Now I'm awake researching causes. Now I get to research what vent prolapse looks like.

Ok. just looked up vent prolapse and I have not seen that, but I went out to check and make sure and no prolapse.

 

[sumi]

I'm so sorry to hear about your hen. That egg you posted the pic off, a "broken and mended" egg, got broken/cracked during the calcification process and "fixed" before she laid it. It is causes either by stress or a disturbance, for example if the hen get a fright and the age of the hen is also a big factor. There is a higher incidence of these eggs in older layers. So I'm leaning towards your hen's advanced age being the cause here. Let us know what you find when you examine her?

 

[raiford921]

Thanks to all of you. My wife is now up and I told her we lost the hen, she was shocked. I also told her about the responses and that I've been talking with someone from Australia about her. She thinks this is amazing. We figured she was an older bird since she had a distinguished comb and waddle when we got her and the others didn't, plus she rules the roost. She had her spot she got in every night and all the others were weary of getting on that specific roost with her. She wasn't aggressive towards any other hen until it was time to go to bed. We started our chickens for eggs and I informed the family that when the eggs stop we're processing them so don't name them. Well we started with six and a course in chicken algebra later(cause chicken math only doubles) we have/had 20 hens and a rooster. Now we're down a hen but have 3 chicks from a natural hatch.

 

[Mickey Lou 04]

I have a hen that almost constantly lays these eggs. I might have to watch her....Hmmmm