Do small eggs create hens that also lay small eggs?

[Suburban Sprouts]

I have a 2 year old flock of 9 hens and am adding some new chicks to my flock by letting my broody Silkie hatch out some fertile eggs that I purchased. The thing is, the eggs that arrived (EE, Marans, Welsummer) are quite a bit smaller than the eggs the rest of my flock lays... Could it be that the breeder's flock is older? Do hens lay smaller eggs as they get older?

What I'm trying to figure out is, will the resulting chicks from my eggs turn into hens that lay small eggs? That would be a bummer if so...

Thanks for your input/wisdom!

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Eggs get larger as chickens age. Our two year reds lay a jumbo Jumbo egg. That would be one reason the eggs appear small and other is a lot of breeders use pullet eggs. In the old days they would grade an egg for size specifically not to incubate overly small eggs. It's been 9 years for you to see those ultra small eggs that show up in first few months of laying, those eggs will have a poor hatch rate. Pullet eggs hatch fine and resulting offspring will lay normal eggs.

 

[ChicKat]

Egghead jr has some awfully good insights.

When you are used to big eggs---then "large" looks kind of small....


EGG information
Name/Size

Ounces

Grams

Calories







Peewee

1.25

35

47
Small

1.50

43

54
Medium

1.75

50

63
Large

2.00

57

72
Extra Large

2.25

64

81
Jumbo

2.50

70

90
I have heard both that an older hen will give you a hen that will lay into old age---and that the fertility goes down as the hen ages. Gail Damerow (Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens) advises that the pullet has been laying for 7-weeks before using the eggs for hatching. I'm not sure that everyone subscribes to that. It is for the well being of the embryo/chick that she uses that guide line.

Hope that you have a good hatch of normal sized chickens!