Barred Rocks Underweight?

[Mother of Chaos]

Two are laying pullet eggs which shocked me because I expected it a month from now! One being the 18 week old and the oldest started when she was 20 weeks old. I thought they were called hens as soon as they laid their first egg. Wow, I'm surprised I've just gotten this much misinformation since I've read multiple chicken books, hachery pages, and other various sites for almost a year before getting my fluffy friends.

I’m starting to wonder if many of us backyard chickeners are seeing our pullets laying earlier than what we usually see advised, maybe because they’re getting better nutrition and living conditions.

But meanwhile, as to what we find online, we’re seeing more and more the results of generative AI enthusiastically and erroneously scraping up random posts and presenting them as facts.

At any rate, you and I have definitely got some early layers.

I actually agree with you that they should be called hens when they start laying, but by convention, it’s when they turn a year old. If you can come up with a rough estimate of when they hatched, call that their birthday, or actually “Hen Day”!

 

[Fluffy_Butt_Hutt]

I’m starting to wonder if many of us backyard chickeners are seeing our pullets laying earlier than what we usually see advised, maybe because they’re getting better nutrition and living conditions.

But meanwhile, as to what we find online, we’re seeing more and more the results of AI enthusiastically and erroneously scraping up random posts and presenting them as facts.

At any rate, you and I have definitely got some early layers.

I actually agree with you that they should be called hens when they start laying, but by convention, it’s when they turn a year old. If you can come up with a rough estimate of when they hatched, call that their birthday, of actually “Hen Day”!

I luckily know the days most were hatched, now you got me thinking of making a tiny chicken pound cake out of feed for their Hen days!

 

[rosemarythyme]

Also thank you for the input! All of the internet says they're adults at 20 weeks old and should be 5 to 6 pounds and it confused me so much!

That seems awfully heavy to me for that age. Fat birds are not healthy birds. Even my "bigger boned" gals are nowhere close to adult weight at 20 weeks. Some breeds don't really get to full adult height until around 1 year, and full adult weight/width until maybe 2 years.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

That seems awfully heavy to me for that age. Fat birds are not healthy birds. Even my "bigger boned" gals are nowhere close to adult weight at 20 weeks. Some breeds don't really get to full adult height until around 1 year, and full adult weight/width until maybe 2 years.

I wonder if the weight per internet was for meat birds at slaughter time, instead of layers? The weight and age would be a bit more in line.

AI creates such garbage info, aargh, and it's taking over so many regular search engines.

 

[Fluffy_Butt_Hutt]

I wonder if the weight per internet was for meat birds at slaughter time, instead of layers? The weight and age would be a bit more in line.

AI creates such garbage info, aargh, and it's taking over so many regular search engines.

I was specifying from dual purpose breeds at 20 weeks. I think the reason it's such garbage is there isn't much data on what weight they would be at that age! I tried beyond AI, but I couldn't find much for dual-purpose. Besides the excuses, AI is similar to a foolish human who heard one thing and try to make it fit all scenarios when they don't know more.

On a related note, I'm currently livid one of my favorite apps, discord, is going to instate new ToS that gives all chats, public or not, to be used for AI research. Just trying to find another streaming app for showing my computer screen will be difficult.

Can report I'm much more confident my chickens are healthy now, and are enjoying plucking hair off my head.