Changed my bob's feed, and now she does this every other day!

[montanaquail]

I changed her feed to a higher protein (took me awhile to track some down in this area) and her laying pattern has changed. She used to lay 2 days in a row and then take a day off. Now she's been doing this every other day. Pretty darn adorable. I thought it was a fluke but she keeps doing it.

 

[dc3085]

Changing protein levels rapidly can cause them lay eggs of different sizes. usually larger eggs when you go up in protein. Lack of uniformity in the size of eggs would seem to me to indicate some sort of issue. Does the size of the egg vary that much every day?

Also where are you that a bob is still laying? Or is she under lights?

 

[montanaquail]

I'm in Montana. She's indoors under lights, and I haven't changed the light cycle yet, although I'm gearing up to let her take a break for the winter. She has to be laying them within a few hours of each other. I generally check the birds morning, afternoon, and evening. She's also semi broody. Never gave a hoot about her eggs until this past week. Now she gets snarky whenever I reach in to do anything, and I've caught her sitting on the eggs, although not consistently.

They seem happy and healthy otherwise, so I dunno. I'm still a newbie so this is all pretty new to me.

 

[TwoCrows]

Sounds like she is releasing two yolks very close to each other. A healthy bird will release 1 yolk every 25 to 27 hours. Too many eggs laid in one day, over time will really tax her system. Each egg contains all the building blocks of life. Her system is set to normally handle one egg a day. If she is not able to meet this demand of two eggs a day she will draw these nutrients out of her organs, bones and other body parts. So I would reduce the protein level down and turn off the lights to get her back to lay only 1 a day or back to her old schedule of every other day. She will live a lot longer. They only have so many eggs to lay in a lifetime.

 

[montanaquail]

Thank you! That makes sense. I'll make those changes and give her a break.