perfect eggs with hole in top....?

hey all,

for the last few days i have found perfect eggs with a small hole in the top (round end rather than pointy end). the shell has fallen in and sits on the protective sack. everything inside is fine and undamaged.

i think its the same hen each day. as she lays last and sits in the next box for ages before laying and never makes a sound...unlike all the others.

the shells are beautifully hard and crack well when broken. there is plenty of grit available and the layers pellets are dodson and horrell. these hens are new to laying so that might be the reason but i'm not sure.

what is going wrong???

any ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated.

thanks for your reply casey.

its definately not egg pecking because i've grabbed them as soon as they've been laid a couple of times.

today's egg just has a pin hole in it - again on the top but slightly to the side rather than dead centre. if it was pecking, wouldn't the holes be more random? also there have been pot eggs in the coop and run (thats where they first started laying) to discourage egg eating - which has worked so they tend to leave the eggs alone.

as for bedding - i've tried sawdust (dust removed), hay, straw and hemcore but they remove it. there is even a ridge on the edge to stop it falling out of the nest box but they just spend hour after hour picking it out before laying.

so i'm still at a loss. maybe they're not getting everything they need from the layers? another thing that comes to mind - once or twice there have been eggs without holes but blue veiny cracks like hairline fractures where the holes would be. are the jerseys too heavy and sitting on the eggs, making them crack?

questions questions......  :blink:

hmmmmm

would that imply then that the shell isn't as hard in this area and any small knock would result in a crack or even a 'caving in' effect of a small part of shell - abit like the soft spot on a baby's head???

its not the end of the world because the eggs are fine when i crack them. it just means i can't really sell them just incase anyone gets ill and blames the egg.

would be nice to find a way to fix it....seems unfair for my girl to go through all that work and then produce a less than perfect egg...poor thing. its like coming 2nd in a race.

p.s not like the added link. def. nothing protruding out of the shell and the hole doesn't have a ridge around it. will try to add a picture but it just looks like either the shell has missed a bit or cracked arund the edge to let the middle bit fall in - like a crater.