Calcium deposits on eggs

There was a query on another forum about spots/marks, call them what you will, on their chicken eggs. I think that what the marks were were calcium deposits, so I replied.

So let's learn...

I thought that my response was probably a good learning tool for anyone that may have in the past, future or present experienced something on their eggs that puzzles them. I know when I first saw this on eggs, I was surprised. This is what I said and the pictures I put on, so other can learn....

About three years ago we were really first starting out getting more involved with chickens. We had the Isa browns. One time I came across an egg that had these sand like particles all over it. Kind of freaked me out and I thought it was some kind of bug that looked like little grains of white sand. I did some searching on the internet and found out some interesting stuff. This happens now and then with chickens, I don't recall what the reason exactly was, but it is a build up of calcium. I have only seen it a couple of times and that was a fair long time ago. It would serve to have a better explanation of why this occurs, if someone can really define the answer. I could look on the internet and do some more studying on this (I really should anyways, but a little on the lazy side at times). I was so flabbergasted by it that I took some pictures. There are three pictures here.

The first two pictures are the same egg, just different angles.

The third picture of the calcium build up is one that I had found on the internet and copied into my pictures' folder so that I could well, just "know" about things. I am glad that I keep all these pictures. The third picture will almost make you feel sick, I know it makes me still feel sick when I see it. That is an extremely severe case of calcium build up, but on the other side of the coin, kind of cool!! I am sure this is what you are seeing on the eggs. Have a beautiful day, CynthiaM.

My egg of fall November 2008

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Another angle of the same egg

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This picture is not of my eggs, but it shows how much of a calcium build can really occur on some eggs, this comes from the internet.

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Upon seeing that pic of your egg my immediate reaction was that was not a calcium deposit at all but the eggs of some insect. Those look like spiders eggs.

The calcium deposits on the second pic looks like the irregular, wart like lumps and nobs that occur on my hen's eggs now and then.

THe perfect regularity of the first picture, the uniform size and perfect shape of each tiny orb says to me there is no way that was the glitch of a chicken body, but the methodical work of a bug with a jillion eggs to glue to something.

SOrry CynthiaM, but I think pic#2 is a calcium wart, and pic#1 looks like what I've seen on the underside of leaves and bark. Insect eggs. Laid by a confused insect. Of course, I could be wrong. (ha ha, that was funny, I'm never wrong! )

Wait! This is a joke, right? You've got an inverse picture of the North American continent and what's the other, Australia? You kidder, you.

I've had eggs like the first one pictured above. At first I thought it was some sort of bug eggs but they were hard like calcium. I saw the exact same type of small pimples on egg pics from another site and one person said she has seen them on brown eggs as well as on blue eggs. They were brown on the brown eggs and blue on the blue eggs. I do believe they are tiny calcium deposits.

That's not Australia, that's Indonesia.

I always thought the calcium deposits were put on last, due to more calcium being available, than needed for the egg, that's why they usually appeared on the end of the egg...?

Interesting stuff.

I stand corrected. Now that you point it out I see immediately it's Indonesia. My bad.

I've also had eggs like the first one- it's calcium. If you wash them same morning they just wash off, but if you leave it on a couple days it can bond on, and doesn't come off.

If it's a solid haze on the outside of the egg, according to the new SPCA chicken video, it's from the hen holding the egg too long when she can't get into a nest box to lay (common in commercial factories)

crazybarnlady wrote:I've also had eggs like the first one- it's calcium. If you wash them same morning they just wash off, but if you leave it on a couple days it can bond on, and doesn't come off.

If it's a solid haze on the outside of the egg, according to the new SPCA chicken video, it's from the hen holding the egg too long when she can't get into a nest box to lay (common in commercial factories)

........It was my posting , and I do have the haze as well , but the hen has a huge option for laying her egg so I don't think that haveing to wait ? The dot's that I'm seeing are small to 3/16th of a inch round .they look like they have spot's of clay stuck to them ? It wash's off , but not the haze ??

The haze is just extra coating from spending too much time in "the chute".

The little calcium pearls are different, I don't know what causes them. I've only had them once or twice, and I don't think my chickens were getting too much calcium in their diet or anything. I actually thought they were kinda cool, it's weird what comes out of a chicken's butt sometimes!

Oh, and older hens are more likely to have things like haze or thin shells, etc.