It's raining eggs in my backyard
I have lived in this house almost 11 years now. We do not have chickens and none of our neighbors have chickens even though our lots are large enough, the law allows us to have up to 4 chicken, but no roosters. It is almost a mile away to the closest neighbor who has chickens.
As I was walking the back yard today, looking for more plants to photograph, I found what appears to be a chicken egg, half buried under leaves.
It looks just like a chicken egg. It is the size of a large chicken egg, but it is not as heavy. The shell doesn't quite feel like a chicken egg. It sort of has a lightly leathery feel to it. It is solid white, but dirty.
I continued to walk around and over near the edge of the yard, I found another one. This one was laying out in the open and has almost no dirt on it.
Everything about it looks like a chicken egg to me except it doesn't quite feel like a chicken egg and is not heavy enough.
Plus there are no chickens close buy.
Birds nearby
We have 3 raptors in our area. Red Tailed Hawks, An owl that is literally nesting in one of my trees. I don't know what kind she is because I have never seen her. She only comes out at night and sits in the tree talking to me when I can't see her, and we have A LOT of buzzards. I am talking HUGE flocks of 20 or more birds that spend a lot of their time on the ground when so much as a squirrel gets ran over.
From the photo's I have found, red tailed hawk eggs are rather spotted, so that rules them out. I did find photos of buzzard eggs that are solid white, but they are more pointy than chicken eggs so that rules them out.
So either it is owl eggs or we have another raptor I have never seen in our area and it decided to drop its eggs in my backyard.
Owl eggs that didn't hatch
I wonder if it is owl eggs that didn't hatch so she pushed them out of the nest. One of the eggs was found less than 15 feet from the tree where her nest is. The other was more like 30 feet away, but it is still possible.
When I researched Owl Eggs, I saw photos of barn owl eggs, and they look exactly like the eggs I found. I don't know what kind of owl is living in my tree, but from it's sound, I have always felt it was probably a barn owl.
It could very well be some of her eggs never hatched so she pushed them out of the nest.
That is the story I am buying unless someone can tell me different
If anyone has any other ideas, I will gladly listen. But owl eggs make perfect sense with one living in my back yard. I hate it that at least two of her eggs did not hatch, but it happens sometimes.
Now I can't wait till spring gets here so I can sit out on the deck at night and see if she comes and talks to me again.
Did the Easter Bunny get lost??? Not a bad problem to be having ;) as long as they find a soft place to land so as not to break...
Good one, lol!
Do you have any ducks in the area? Ducks tend to indiscriminately lay on the ground wherever they happen to bed down for the night. I have 9 ducks and 4 drakes in my back yard. That looks like a duck egg to me. In fact I found these two in my back yard this morning.
There might be some ducks that come around the lake occasionally. As the crow flies, it is only about a mile over the big hill, but by road it is about 10 miles. I don't know if they would come into my back yard with all the dogs and cats that hang out back there. It is actually sort of unusual for any wild animals of any type to actually land in the yard. The hawks will land in the trees, but never on the ground. Even the deer go into the neighbors yard behind us and mess with the dogs behind the safety of the fence. They could easily jump the fence but they don't. It is just weird.
Barn Owls won't lay eggs right now. No wild bird would lay eggs right now. I think it has to be poultry of some type. Such an interesting mystery!
It is so very strange. The closest chickens are a mile away and would have to come across a main road with a lot of traffic to get here. Plus I don't think they would intentional come into the yard with the dogs. These eggs are very light for their size which is why I think it is eggs that didn't hatch this past year and she just now pushed them out of the nest. It is also possible she abandoned the nest and some other creature tried to take off with them. The only time I hear her is when I sit on the back deck at night, and evenings have been too cold for months so she could have moved on when they didn't hatch.
I left the eggs where I found them and will try to keep an eye on them to see where happens. none of the possibilities make 100% sense. It is just the wrong time of the year.
I can't see any wild birds laying eggs at this time of year. There are species that lay several clutches in a year, or are late nesters, but they are usually songbirds. Raptors tend to be consistent with their nesting and laying.
I can't completely rule out the eggs being old, but that would be odd. There are so many natural predators, any unhatched or abandoned eggs would quickly be eaten. As terrible as it sounds, I would gingerly crack one open (outside!) and see what the inside looks like; fresh, rotten, half-developed?
My guess would be poultry, but as you said you don't know of any, that's not definite. Maybe watch your yard as often and closely as possible, to see if you can catch the culprit. :)
I spend as much time as I can outside but since I have gotten older, even our mild winters are just too cold for my old bones. The big thing is how often there are dogs and/or cats in the backyard. They all are know to hunt various smaller creatures and all often bring me presents. Rare do squirrels come into the back yard, but they do occasionally. Especially the ones that like to eat the Camellias buds. The only other creature I have seen in the back yard "on the ground" is a possum that lives in the neighbors ivy. He came through the fence one time but the dogs got after it and he never came back.
Do you know if raptor eggs feel leathery as opposed to the firm feeling of a chicken egg? That was the main thing that made me discount chickens. They literally felt like there was a slight give to shell. Not as much give as a turtle shell, I have held them in the past. But not as firm as a chicken.
I did not think to look and see if the nest was still there. We had some reasonably windy weather the past few days and it is possible it blew apart. I will have to check tomorrow if it doesn't rain all day.
I forgot to mention, I am not really wanting to break the egg if I can keep from it. Rotting egg is not an easy thing for me to stomach. I might not have a choice, but it seems strange the dogs are not bothering them either. Miss Trubel is a high energy terrier with Pica. She eats any and everything, including lots of things that are not edible. So for her to ignore it... That one will be a last resort, lol.
I checked this morning and the Owl nest is gone. I see no sign of it laying on the ground around the tree it was in, but we had a fairly decent windy storm the other night. It could have easily been blown well beyond my vision range.
I did not spend a lot of time outdoors this past year. Once I came out of the depression from my husband dying, I went full speed ahead into trying to build an income. I honestly don't remember the last time I heard the owl in the backyard. She could have been killed back during the spring or summer. It is possible the nest was never raided because of where it was at. There are only 8 trees in that area along the fence, part in my yard and part in the neighbors. We both have multiple dogs, so there is a possibility it would not have been raided.
None of this makes any sense, but the owl has more possibilities of what could have happen than anything I can think of.