My tiny u.p. farm

I was out collecting eggs tonight found the smallest egg in one of the nesting boxes. It’s smaller than any starter egg I’ve ever found. My hens shouldn’t be laying starter eggs now anyway; they should all have been laying somewhat regularly by now. My youngest hens are just over a year old. The shell is normal, the egg is a little oblong, but otherwise it seems like a normal egg. Just very tiny.  We don’t have any bantam hens.  I hope it’s a one-time thing, but it is pretty interesting.  My son asked if he can eat it (once it’s clean, if I crack it and determine it’s edible, then I told him yes, he could have it).  Here are some pictures of the strange tiny egg:

What an interesting find. I’ll update you on what happens when I open it.

 

 

*** 5/3 Update! My son wanted me to hard boil the egg, instead of just cracking it into a pan. We hard boiled it, and then cut it in half lengthwise. Here is what we found:

We have not had any more small eggs, but we’ve found a couple that were the same color and are somewhat lopsided – normal sized eggs, but flatter on one side, like they were squished while forming.  So we may have a hen who is either starting to lay, starting to re-lay (maybe stopped over winter?) or getting ready to stop.  My oldest hens are only 2 so that shouldn’t be happening yet.