Thursday, May 2, 2013

Shell-less egg

If you keep chickens for any length of time, once in awhile you'll come across a shell-less egg.

Take this one, for example. Looks pretty ordinary, doesn't it?


But it has no shell, only the inside membrane keeping it together.


The membrane is actually surprisingly tough. It hardens up a bit when exposed to air, and this egg was sitting in the coop all night.


The egg inside is perfectly fine. I just tore the membrane open.


It's fun to have a little variety once in awhile.

11 comments:

  1. Love the orange yolk. Looks delicious!

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  2. Yup! Sometimes I get them from my Ethel - she is my oldest hen and rarely lays anymore. We call them "rubber eggs". I just usually put them in chicken run and everyone has a good snack! They never peck on a good egg though.

    Phyllis (N/W Jersey)

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  3. Interesting!

    I just stopped by to check your site before looking up giving chicks grit and what age. And just what grit was...

    So much to learn.

    Going to place local ads for a Wyandotte rooster chick that is unwanted. Hope to get one that has been somewhat socialized. I was offered two of other breeds but the clueless teenage girls that owned them also described why they were penned up until they were given away. Apparently mean and somewhat dangerous.

    Off to research.

    sidetracksusie

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  4. My friend thought that hens that pecked her shoelaces were mean. She was clueless. So the chickens may not have been mean, just frustrated...unless they were roosters.

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  5. That golden yolk signifies a home-raised egg. It means the hen is living the good life. The chickens themselves taste better because they lived in chicken heaven before they got butchered.

    I'm a long way off from raising my own chickens, but I buy my eggs from a Mennonite roadside stand where I can see the chicken coop fifty feet away.

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  6. Quick note:

    If I'm not mistaken the membrane is permeable, so I like to cook these well done, as I do with any eggs with cracks, just to be safe.

    A.McSp

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  7. How are the yokes so orange? Mine free range eat bugs, worm , organic food but still not as orange.

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  8. We have one chicken that we are taking care of in rehab. She seemed to be real broody and the other chickens about picked her naked. Since she has been in a pen by herself she has layed two weird looking eggs that look like poop wrapped in a web looking shell(soft). Since then, her feathers are coming back in and we have had 3 normal eggs. I'm hoping to reintoduce her after she has recovered. Have you ever seen anything like that? She is sweet natured and quite tame-a Buff Orpigton who was a new chick a year ago.

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  9. I have had a few of those eggs over the years!

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  10. We have had "tube" eggs and other odd things out of brand new and very old hens and eggs inside eggs ! Roosters can be very vicious and it may be the breed more than anything , ours were pets and they at a certain age turned blood thirsty overnight attacking our little children and us , they had been treated kindly up to then

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  11. My old hen laid a few of the "membrane" eggs. Someone told me they are nicknamed egg farts, hehe.

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