Embee
Newly Registered
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu May 18, 2017 12:52 pm

Eggs with blood spots and some other icky thing....

I have eight hens that are pretty old as chickens go. I get a lot of eggs with blood spots and clumps of some other weird looking stuff in the egg whites.

Sometimes the blood spots are little bigger than a pinhead, sometimes much larger. The clumps of wierd looking stuff are usually fairly small but on occassion have been the size of a small pea.

I've had these hens (and several others who were not so fortunate as to live this long) for a long time but the eggs were not always like this.

I had been feeding the house brand layer mash from the farm supply store, but that is a crumble that has a lot of waste as it breaks down to powder that doesn't get eaten.

More than a year ago, I switched to Nutrena pelleted layer feed that is "vegetarian", which I don't feel is the best thing for chickens who would rather eat bugs...... However there is less waste with the pellets. This feed also has marigold additive for more yolk color.

Is the feed the culprit, or are my hens just too old? It is not every egg, and not every hen. The white eggs almost never have it, and those two hens are the oldest. Just the brown eggs, but I can't figure out if they are all coming from the same hen or not. I suspect there are at least two hens with this issue.

User avatar
Allyn
Green Thumb
Posts: 480
Joined: Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:38 pm
Location: Mississippi Gulf Coast - zone 8b

I'm late to the game, but maybe I can help.

I don't feel like the feed is the problem. Nutrena is good stuff, and I prefer to feed the pellets, because, as you noted, the crumbles can turn to dust. If you use the crumbles, you can add a little water to the dust to make a bit of 'oatmeal' consistency, they'll eat it -- at least mine do. Nutrena crumbles seem to have less dust than other brands, but there can still be some powder. I've tried other name-brand feeds and it seemed like half the bag was powder.

I've been using the Nutrena Country Feeds which are not vegetarian. If you want to keep using the pellets, supplement the feed with an occasional treat of tuna or some lean chicken (yeah, I know it seems wierd to feed a chicken chicken, but they love it).

Old hens can lay some funky-looking things as they reach the end of their laying days. I wouldn't be too worried about it.

2totango
Full Member
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Jul 30, 2017 1:44 pm
Location: Hanover, Ontario

I can't say what may be causing the 'ick', but I've been keeping chickens for several years and have some of the original old girls. I choose to feed my girls an organic mix milled by a farmer down the road rather than any commercial feed. Even this gets some powdery leftovers. I mix it with water to make a kind of 'porridge' (in the winter use hot water and they go mad for it!), so there is no waste. Otherwise, if you're concerned about nutrition, they love food scraps, and if they can go outdoors they'll eat as many bugs and worms as they like - plus greens to make a really nice yolk!



Return to “Chickens/Ducks, Goats, and other Livestock”