Eggs with Rough Texture, Thin Shells

[Pelephant]

Recently, I've been getting many defective eggs from my small flock of backyard chickens.

1. The shell texture is rough, almost like sandpaper with tiny little bumps
2. The shells are generally very thin
3. The whites of the egg are gooey and clumpy and seem to have a lot of water (lots of popping on the frying pan!)

Although I can't be certain, I suspect that these eggs might come from a single chicken. It's hard to tell though, since I have four Red Comets that lay similar colored eggs. The one thing I do know is that all these defective eggs are from the Red Comets.

I have been providing them with oyster shells, but have seen no improvement.

A quick search on the web tells me that IB might be a possibility. The chickens seem healthy on the outside. However, there was one Red Comet that had been coughing/sneezing a lot roughly a month ago. She is fine now though, and at the time, I thought that it might have been the dust in the summer.

If this is indeed caused by a disease like IB, should I cull my entire flock? The non-Red Comet chickens (an Americana and a Sussex) lay perfectly fine eggs. On a related note, if I were to cull the Red Comets, would it be safe to eat them? It seems like a bit of a waste to throw them away, especially since there are no visible signs of disease on the outside.

 

[katelk]

Do the eggs look like this:
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/6/diseases-of-poultry/194/infectious-bronchitis-ib

- these seem wrinkled texture- or are they bumpy? Kinda like they just have spots of extra shell splattered on them?
How old are your birds? Younger birds especially can lay goofy eggs. My ladies are a little over a year old and I still fairly regularly get thin shelled eggs (I feed oyster shell) and bumpy eggs. Some eggs can even come out in odd shapes.
This is normal. The eggs will never all be uniform like what you find in the grocery store.

 

[Pelephant]

Thanks for the reply!

The eggs are not wrinkly, they are rough, sort of like sand paper. The eggs feel a bit lighter (shells are thin and often break in the laying box) and aren't smooth and shiny like normal eggs. They lays these sort of defective eggs very consistently, there's at least one a day out of a collection of 3-4 eggs.

The hens in question shouldn't be too young, they're between 1-2 years old.

 

[katelk]

Thanks for the reply!

The eggs are not wrinkly, they are rough, sort of like sand paper. The eggs feel a bit lighter (shells are thin and often break in the laying box) and aren't smooth and shiny like normal eggs. They lays these sort of defective eggs very consistently, there's at least one a day out of a collection of 3-4 eggs. 

The hens in question shouldn't be too young, they're between 1-2 years old.

Is it possible that you have one certain lady who is just not eating the oyster shell? It sounds like perhaps a consistent dietary issue. You could try changing their food. Do you ever give them supplements or feed kitchen scraps? Often just a chicken feed is not enough for optimal maintenance. I would not worry too much. Even if something is messed up in one hen's egg production process, it is more than likely not serious enough to cull anyone. Here is a link for common egg shell issues:

http://www.alltech.com/sites/default/files/alltech-egg-shell-quality-poster.pdf

Keep in mind, more often than not the less serious issues are the culprit.

 

[Pelephant]

That's a relief. I'll try changing the feed then and seeing if that improves things.

 

[sarahandbray]

This is identical to the problem I'm having. Every day, I'm getting one out of 6 eggs that has a thin shell, bumpy like sandpaper. I haven't noticed that the contents were different, but not the nice smooth, shiny look of the others. All about 25-week-old Golden Comets, provided with 24/7 feed, water, grit, and oyster shell.

I think I'm going to mix in some oyster shell with their feed and see if that helps this one hen. Annoying since the others are all working it out just fine!!!

 

[Pip4Chirp]

I had this problem today - two rough (not wrinkled) eggs with brown spots. The chart posted by katalk shows similar eggs and says the spots could be an excess of calcium. But then the sandpaper quality to the shells seems to indicate not enough calcium? My girls have free choice oyster shell, grit, layer feed and then they get veggies every morning. This happens every once in awhile - more often with the spots than the roughness. Does anyone think I should be concerned? Chickens are 9 months old today.

 

[Eggcessive]

Here is another good link to read about egg quality: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/common-egg-quality-problems

 

[Pip4Chirp]

Thanks Eggcessive! That article is really helpful. Just curious - does anyone know what constitutes "a disturbance during calcification"? It's strange that it happened to two chickens today, who laid perfectly smooth, un-spotty eggs yesterday and nothing really changed (to my knowledge) during the two days.

 

[StephensonC]

Thanks Eggcessive! That article is really helpful. Just curious - does anyone know what constitutes "a disturbance during calcification"? It's strange that it happened to two chickens today, who laid perfectly smooth, un-spotty eggs yesterday and nothing really changed (to my knowledge) during the two days

I had the same thing yesterday with one of my Golden Comets. In my case, I think the disturbance was from the day before when my son and his girlfriend were out there on the back of our property (beside the coops and runs) doing some target practice shooting. Everytime the gun went off all our chickens would just stop dead in their tracks and look around for a few minutes. I also had 6 less eggs than most days yesterday.