We opened one of the pullet eggs this morning and discovered that it was actually a double-yolker! It’s not uncommon for pullets to lay a few double-yolked eggs initially, but this was a perfect miniature.
Once the pullet’s system works out the kinks, she should just lay regular-sized eggs with single yolks. Single-yolked eggs are desirable for hatching (multiple yolked eggs are difficult, at best, to hatch), and a “normal” egg is easier on the hen, too; sometimes double-yolked eggs are huge. Enough said.
Photo 1 shows three regular chicken eggs, two duck eggs, and the twin yolks of the pullet egg in the center of the bowl. Photo 2 is a comparison of pullet egg to (standard) hen egg.
Goldie left the nest with the three unhatched eggs in it yesterday and took her three chicks to the opposite end of the brooder. We took this as a sign that she knew the remaining eggs weren’t going to hatch, so we took them out. Not wanting to risk tossing a viable egg, and to try to better understand why they didn’t hatch, we decided to open them. Carefully. Outdoors.
Our Gold Laced Wyandotte, Goldie, has been sitting on a clutch of six eggs for the past three weeks. Today, her hard work and dedication has paid off…she has chicks!
We’re still finding shell-less and soft-shelled (rubber) eggs, eggs smashed from dropping onto the poop board (like they just fell out of the roosting hens) and, today, a very strange-looking egg.
Our red-eyed white (REW) New Zealand doe, Ava, kindled on Sunday. She tends to pull fur at the last minute, so we knew something was up when we saw the nest box lined with white fur. The kits were completely hidden from sight, but slight movement beneath the fur indicated the babies had arrived.
We’ve been wondering if the strange egg activity lately signaled the beginning of the oldest group of pullets to lay, and today’s finding – another miniature egg – confirmed it.