Bigger Eggs

[Ascholten]

Is it just me or does it seem like the chickens lay bigger eggs later in the season, when fall hits?

Is this making up for lost time for the hot summer if it is true, or is this just a result of them being a year older now or it happens when they 'reset' after a molt or what?

Aaron

 

[Callender Girl]

Funny, you should mention this. I was thinking the same thing, especially about one of my Cochins and my Maran. Both are laying enormous eggs right now.

 

[Ascholten]

If this is true. The babies from bigger eggs, are they bigger? Any significant health differences from babies, and baby hughey's ? If they are bigger, do they grow faster, or take a day or so longer to hatch, to give them the time to grow bigger?

Just curious and thinking odd stuff is all.

Aaron

 

[NorthwoodsChick]

If this is true. The babies from bigger eggs, are they bigger? Any significant health differences from babies, and baby hughey's ? If they are bigger, do they grow faster, or take a day or so longer to hatch, to give them the time to grow bigger?

Just curious and thinking odd stuff is all.

Aaron

all good questions. Fire up the bator…it’s time for a hatch experiment. Hope they don’t come out as baby dinosaurs

 

[3KillerBs]

My understanding is that mature hens lay fewer but larger eggs after their first molt.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

If this is true. The babies from bigger eggs, are they bigger? Any significant health differences from babies, and baby hughey's ? If they are bigger, do they grow faster, or take a day or so longer to hatch, to give them the time to grow bigger?

Just curious and thinking odd stuff is all.

Aaron

Bigger eggs tend to result in chunky chicks if they also get the right genes from dad. But chunky doesn't always mean healthy unfortunately

 

[Chookchicken]

I imagine it would have something to do with going into winter. Perhaps the chicks need to be chunkier in order to survive the cold.

 

[Ascholten]

I imagine it would have something to do with going into winter. Perhaps the chicks need to be chunkier in order to survive the cold.

Excellent deduction there, would make perfect sense, get a little fat on them bones to insulate them.

My understanding is that mature hens lay fewer but larger eggs after their first molt.

Ive heard that, Ive also heard that the egg size may increase every year after molt. I had a few that did not really molt bad at all this year, you barely knew, and they did not stop laying during the process, yet it seems all 3 of my current layers...well...2.5 one is hit or miss, are laying much bigger eggs since we had the cooler weather roll in.

another interesting thing that I am sure should not have anything to do with it but they all been free ranging for weeks now, and I have not been feeding them much at all in the way of processed food, they get one narrow bowl around noon. I feel this way they get their bugs and stuffs from the yard and 'round out' whatever they need from the food I give them. I find they are not as ravenous as they are first thing in the morning gorging themselves at the food dish either. and more like 'top off'. yet eggs are perfectly healthy and firm.

Maybe processed food for them, we love to 'think' it's super great with all these vitamins bla bla, but it's really crap kind of, you know, like the processed $41t WE eat every day is in the long run, not really super healthy for us either, not even canned veggies and stuff that is supposed to be good for you, because of all the salts and chemicals and garbage in it.

I've cooked (to make the process work better) and analyzed the bigger and smaller eggs with my XRF, and can't see anything really different in them, although, I am restricted to a resolution of only down to about 3 to 5 ppm on some stuff, when I don't know, I may need to be looking for PPB on some things???

Interesting, looking forward to seeing any other inputs on this thread.

Aaron

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm aware of two factors in changing the size of the eggs. One is that as the hens get older the eggs get bigger. That's really obvious when a pullet first starts laying, the eggs get bigger pretty fast but the rate of size growth slows down. They do get a little bigger in future year, but the rate is really slow. Still, it is often noticeable after a molt.

The other factor is nutrition. It's mainly protein but not just protein. Nothing is ever that simple where it would just be one nutrient but protein is hugely important. The yolk is about 1/3 fat so they need fat, for example. But the more "protein" they eat the bigger the egg, within limits. Too much protein, like too much of anything, is not good for them.

It is interesting that your eggs got bigger when you switched from mostly feed to mostly forage. I'd have expected the opposite though I don't know what feed you were feeding them. It's always in the details. A balanced chicken feed should contain everything they need. A decent forage should also but is usually it is not as high in protein as the chicken feed. Still to me it shows that forage isn't aways as bad as many people on here think. Chickens have been living and thriving on forage alone for thousands of years if it is good quality forage.

As for hatching eggs. It is recommended to not hatch pullet eggs. It's not just that they are small. When a pullet first starts to lay it is not unusual for her to lay strange eggs. It can take a while for the pullet to get all of the kinks worked out of her egg laying factory. One I've read specifically is that the shells can be so thick the chick can't pip. From my experience they are not always fertile either. It could be that the chaliza aren't made correctly. Lots of possibilities for kinks. I find that if I wait until the pullet has been laying at least a month the majority of these problems go away.

The chick cannot grow larger than the amount of nutrients in the shell can support. There would not be room inside the egg for it to fit anyway. So the size of the egg has a direct bearing on the size of the chick at hatch. I find that the survival rate of chicks that hatch from those really small pullet eggs is a little less than if they hatch from larger eggs. I'm not sure if that is because of the size of the egg or if there was just something a little wrong with the way the pullet put that egg together that causes a failure to thrive. I suspect a failure to thrive. Usually they make it fine.

My suggestion is to hatch eggs that are a normal size for that hen at that stage of her life. Avoid unusually small or unusually large ones, there is likely something wrong with them. Don't overthink it too much, you should be fine with those.

And, as always, try it and let us know what you think based on your results.