| | One of our chickens, Sour, lays speckled eggs on a pretty regular basis. Why? We had no idea, so we did some research to figure it out. The short answer is the speckles are extra calcium deposits, and are formed when the calcification process is disturbed or when there’s a defective shell gland. Specifically, the speckles are formed during the pigmentation stage of development inside the hen's body. They can also be caused by an excess of calcium in the hen's diet and it might also be a natural way to make shells stronger. Lots of possible reasons! Here's what we know: Sweet and Sour are two different types of chickens, which may explain why only one hen lays the speckled eggs. Both hens have the same diet which includes pellets, scratch, fresh fruits and vegetables, crushed oyster shells, and dried meal worms. Learn more about our chickens. |
|
Generally speaking, a hen reaches egg-laying age at roughly five months of age. The Lab hens, Sweet and Sour, both started laying in early to mid October. Since then, they've laid the average one egg every 25 hours. This laying schedule is based on the hen's reproductive system. Shortly after the eggs is laid, the hen's body starts to produce the next one. Once the yolk is released, it is about a 25 hour process to assemble the rest of the egg around it until it is ready to lay. In a typical week, Sweet and Sour begin by laying quite early in the morning. By the time they're being checked on, there's usually two eggs. By midweek, it becomes less likely that eggs will be found first thing in the morning. Instead, the hens start to lay later in the morning, sometimes as late as noon. Toward the weekend, it is expected that we'll find just one egg, as each hen skips one laying day. Typically, Sweet and Sour lay twelve eggs per week. Except for this week....
On Thursday, two eggs were collected as expected. Friday morning, only one egg was expected. Imagine the surprise when at 8:30am three eggs are found (picture on the left)! It was a very exciting find. We meant to share this find immediately, but wanted to do some research first since it was so unexpected. No eggs were expected for Saturday morning, but again there were three!
Based on what we know, we hypothesize the following: We think the picture on the left has two eggs laid by Sour. These eggs are usually more elongated and speckled. Sweet, on the other hand, tends to lay rounder, smaller eggs. This leads us to believe that the picture on the right has two eggs by Sweet and one by Sour. According to our research, its possible for hens to lay more than one egg per cycle, but it doesn't happen often. When it does occur, its usually in mature hens, during their first year of laying, and is not something that continues for an ongoing period of time. Tomorrow is Sunday and no eggs are expected. Stay tuned.... We're having another book sale at the Kiddie Science Lab! Join us on Saturday, January 19th from 2pm to 5pm for our $1 book sale! We'll have new and like-new selections including board books, early readers, language books, graphic novels, hardcovers, chapter books, and popular favorites such as Goosebumps, Ricki Ricotta, and much more! All books are $1 each and proceeds benefit Kiddie Science programming. 509 Rogers Avenue, door on the right. See you at the Lab!  |
Testimonial:"My son LOVES these classes, so informative, hands on and fun!" BLOG TOPICS:
All
|
