I happen to have my camera with me and caught this whole thing in pictures, how cool is that? Okay, so here is some background information first. Big Red laid a beautiful egg at about 8:00 am this morning. A perfect egg in every way. Then this evening at about 7:30 pm while I was snapping pics of the chickens, I happen to turn towards her. She was standing still by the door of the run. She looked like she was about to go poop...you know what that looks like -she pulls her butt feathers in, slightly squats and her tail feathers pull downward as she pushes it out. Well when she did that I noticed nothing came out. I wanted to take her picture so I waited another second then snapped a shot (thinking I would miss the actual pooping and get a still shot before she walked away). Instead I got this shot.
Do you see the bulge at her vent? Here is a close up with an arrow...
What the heck?!? That looks like a baby crowning! And then all of a sudden it is out on the ground. Even Big Red was shocked by this.
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| Big Red: "Did I do that?" |
And this was not a normal egg either. For one, it did not have a shell, and it had a....uh, (for lack of a better explanation), it had what looked like an open umbilical cord on the end.
And the 'white' of the egg was slowly dripping out of the tube opening. The outer egg sack was thick and did not break when I picked it up. What the heck happened here? Surely you longtime chicken keepers have seen this before. Can you tell me why she laid another egg after only 12 hours, and why this one had the open tube on one end?
Could this be like when we humans have miscarriages because the baby is not formed properly? Could this be a miscarriage of an egg that wasn't suppose to be ready until tomorrow morning? After she laid this 'egg' she took a few steps away then took a standing nap. She does that on occasion, just her thing I guess. But obviously she felt comfortable afterwards so she just napped a few moments.
I am not going to freak out or anything, weird stuff happens when chickens begin laying eggs, this I know and understand, but this was just so weird, probably because it happened right in front of me (and my camera fortunately). Please share your experience on this if you have seen this before.
Keeper of 1 husband, 2 grandkids, 3 dogs,
3 cats, and 17 Chickens!
3 cats, and 17 Chickens!
Did this post stir something inside of you? If so, Please leave me a comment, I would love to know what you're thinking!!!
