Bizarre chicken egg 'with no shell' stuns - so how does it happen?
A backyard chicken farmer was baffled after collecting the silicone-like egg and wondered how it had no shell.
When you open a carton of eggs you've picked up from the store, you'll likely be met with six or twelve shells ranging in hues from white to brown.
Not ever would you expect to see an egg without a shell — although it's a "fairly common" sight Yahoo News Australia was told.
This exact scenario played out in front of a backyard chicken farmer who said they noticed the shell-less egg when collecting it from their hen. They appeared confused by the jelly-like texture because "all the other eggs had shells". "We've never [seen] anything like that before," they admitted in a post on social media.
Chicken diet is likely to blame
Jason Nethercott from Talking Hens told Yahoo News Australia the "silicon condition" happens often and "isn't a serious sign of things going wrong with a hen".
There are three main reasons why this could happen, he said, but it can "easily be rectified in most cases with greater attention being paid to what the hen(s), is/are eating".
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"These eggs happen sometimes if a chicken has eaten too many scraps and other food that isn't her regular chicken feed. This means that she won't have eaten enough calcium and won't be able to lay a strong layer of calcium carbonate to encase her egg with," he explained.
Chicken may have got a fright
Another possible cause is if the chicken "gets a fright" say from lightning, a prowling fox or a barking dog. This can "interrupt the application of calcium in the hen's oviduct" he explained resulting in softened eggs.
The last possible cause is a build-up of parasitic roundworms which can "steal" the nutrients needed to form a good quality egg or eggshell. However, Jason explained this will tend to produce "a series of poor eggs until the hen is dewormed" rather than just one.
Earlier this year, a Queensland woman was shocked to find unusual tiny bumps grouped together on her eggs. That too was related to diet, Jason confirmed to Yahoo.
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