Speckle

So, turns out no training life is boring life for the blog.  What is NOT at all boring is what has been happening in the chicken coop.

Yes. That’s right.  On a rainy Sunday where I stayed  in the kitchen for 6 hours cooking two meals and baking zuchinni bread so I could pretend like I was being productive while I watched 10 straight hours of Breaking Bad (don’t think this story can get more exciting?  Just wait. ) I went out into the coop to get the eggs, and found that one of the chickens had finally…laid an egg in the doghouse!

Victory.  Paul: 1, Chickens: 0.

The egg I pulled from the house was way more speckled than usual.

I thought that was weird and was wondering what might have caused the change.  After some extensive research (Google) I came across this National Geographic article that suggests that the speckles on the shells of bird eggs may be caused by certain compounds known as protoporphyrins, which often shows up in eggs from birds that are calcium deficient to assist in strengthening the shells.

The birds discussed in the NG article were great tits (serious), so I tried to see if it’s the same for chickens.  There actually isn’t a whole lot written about that, but the little I did find points to the same answer.

Time to start spiking the chicken feed with One-A-Day Women’s multivitamins.