4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[LisaJane]

Hello all,

 

Looking for some help - our girls (one is a miss pepperpot and one a gingernutranger) have been laying for about 8 weeks now and both have been laying brown eggs. Now one of our girls has started laying eggs with very light (almost white) shells since the weekend.

 

What would cause this? She seems happy enough, not sick or sorry, just this rapid shift in egg shell colour. Should I be worried or is there a simple explanantion? Any help much appreciated!!!

[Raina]

Hi,

 

one of my hens,LL, started to lay lighter coloured eggs

 

i think it's something to do with the weather,as she had stopped laying lighter coloured egg and she started again now it's raining

[Ness3103]

one of mine has started laying lighter eggs over the last couple of weeks, not sure why but it does make it easier to tell who's laid what

[LJ's Chooks]

often it depends on what they have been eating... and with my blue egg girls, the colour fades as they go through their laying season... their legs change colour too and go less yellow, after they have a break though, they soon colour up again.

[Snowy]

I agree, it can just be a normal change sa she goes through the laying season. However, pale shells can also be symptoms of worms. Worth worming to be on the safe side if you haven't done them recently.

[LJ's Chooks]

Thanks snowy, every day I learn something new on this forum. What would we do without it!!!

[alet_chicken]

Hi, we recently asked a poultry vet about this same issue, as we were concerned about our ex-batts who laid very dark eggs when we got them in April, but their eggs rapidly became much lighter over the course of the summer. He said that there were a number of factors, the most important in our case being that exposure to a lot of sunlight would make the eggs very pale. And indeed, we find that after a couple of cloudy days their eggs do become darker again.

 

I've also found that variations in their calcium intake seems to vary the colour (e.g. more calcium leads to lighter eggs).