I have a Rhode Island Red hen that started laying a week or two ago at around 19 weeks of age. It is the smallest chicken I have ever had by far, and it is laying the smallest eggs I have ever seen from a chicken. They are closer in size to quail eggs than the eggs from my other RIR. It also isn't laying in the nesting boxes with the other hens. It lays them in random bushes throughout the yard, and each day is like an easter egg hunt for me. It is the most skittish chicken I have ever had, is nearly impossible to catch, squeals like it's dying when I do catch it (it doesn't make normal chicken noises so much as it squeals like a pig), and is at the very bottom of the pecking order.
Is there a chance it will get bigger and lay normal eggs in normal spots, or is my chicken just, uh... different? I remember that it had a bare patch (area about the size of a nickel with no fuzz at all) on it's bottom when it was a chick that I didn't notice until I got home...
The RIR in question next to some Welsummers of the same age that aren't laying yet:
My morning hunt:
Three of her eggs next to an egg from my other RIR:
Is there a chance it will get bigger and lay normal eggs in normal spots, or is my chicken just, uh... different? I remember that it had a bare patch (area about the size of a nickel with no fuzz at all) on it's bottom when it was a chick that I didn't notice until I got home...
The RIR in question next to some Welsummers of the same age that aren't laying yet:
My morning hunt:
Three of her eggs next to an egg from my other RIR:
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