Wind Eggs - What are they & Why do you get them?

*** Wind Eggs - What are they & Why do you get them? ***

Wind egg / Fart egg / Cock egg or whatever you want to call them, are really really small eggs that usually contain no yolk at all. Such an egg is most often associated with a pullets (young hens) first effort, produced before her laying mechanism is fully ready or reached full maturity. In a mature hen, a wind egg is unlikely, but not impossible and can occur if a bit of reproductive tissue breaks away, stimulating the egg-producing glands to treat it as a yolk and wrap it in albumen, membranes and a shell as it travels through the egg tube (oviduct). This has occurred if, instead of a yolk, the egg contains a small particle of grayish tissue. This type of egg occurs in most varieties of fowl, including chickens, guinea fowl, ducks and quail, amongst others.





A wind egg can also be caused by an hiccup / blip in egg production, either at the beginning or end of lay when the hormone level has not stabilised and are usually nothing to worry about. If you have a young hen producing these eggs then it will settle down and begin to lay proper eggs once the days really start to lengthen and as the hen matures. A cockerel has nothing to do with wind eggs and his sperm is held within special storage glands in the oviduct (egg tube), only moving up to the infundibulum (funnel that the yolk falls in to) when a yolk is ovulated in order to fertilise it. The lifespan of a sperm once it swims out of the storage gland in response to the ovulation hormone is minutes, so no spare sperm are likely to be included within a normal egg. Since there is no yolk in a wind egg, the sperm will still be in the storage glands.

Is there anything you can do to help a hen laying these eggs???

 

The answer is NO, as outlined above there can be a few reasons why a hen would produce a wind egg and 9/10 the situation will righten itself, however it is worth mentioning that pullets (young hens) will lay small eggs on a continuing basis initially for a few weeks as they are new to laying and as a their bodies adjust and also mature. Within a few weeks you should see the egg sizes start to increase getting larger and larger with age and as they hit their 'peak' laying often produce double yolked eggs which again are caused by a hiccup / blip in the hens laying cycle as the hen ovulates two yolks are released and again are quite normal and will happen now and then throughout a hens laying life.





Recap! What do wind eggs look like and do I need to worry?

1. The egg will be really really small (shown in above images).
2. Shell is usually really really hard.
3. There will be no yolk or very little.
4. Usually laid by a pullet (young hen).
5. Nothing to worry about

You can find out more about egg oddities here in our DOCUMENT all about eggs, issues and concerns.

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