Easter Egger club!

[summerb123]

congrats

 

[summerb123]

I will try ad get some pics of my new babies Tuesday if not Wednesday!

 

[FlyWheel]

LOL - yeah, anyone in SC knows that Kudzu is insanely hardy! I'll do a little research about the berries, thanks for that tip!
Yeah, that's what I meant... cubbie-hole.
Well, none in that pen are old enough to lay eggs, but it wouldn't surprise me a bit if they do commandeer it for that purpose!

My bad, the berries are fine.
http://www.thekitchn.com/did-you-know-you-can-eat-kudzu-92488
However I would still harvest them, to prevent birds from spreading the vine.

 

[SIMiller]

I have a question I hope someone can answer. I have 4 EE pullets almost 24 weeks old. 2 of them started laying eggs this week. I started out with 1 small green egg and 2 days later collected another small green egg and a small blue egg. Today somebody laid a huge green egg. Do you think it's from the same green egg layer that produced earlier this week or do I have another one starting to lay? As I understand it, the color of egg a pullet lays stays consistent, but does the size too?

 

[FlyWheel]

I have a question I hope someone can answer. I have 4 EE pullets almost 24 weeks old. 2 of them started laying eggs this week. I started out with 1 small green egg and 2 days later collected another small green egg and a small blue egg. Today somebody laid a huge green egg. Do you think it's from the same green egg layer that produced earlier this week or do I have another one starting to lay? As I understand it, the color of egg a pullet lays stays consistent, but does the size too?

Could be, First eggs in my experience are almost always smaller, however until the hen's system settles down she can lay anything, including double yolks, which are almost always larger than normal. Heck on of my landlady's chickens once layed an egg inside another egg. A full egg, shell and all.


Unless you actually catch them laying what it's hard to tell. Now if you consistently get large eggs as well as small ones (or both at the same time) then yes, it probably is a different bird.

 

[Chicken5555]

I have a question I hope someone can answer. I have 4 EE pullets almost 24 weeks old. 2 of them started laying eggs this week. I started out with 1 small green egg and 2 days later collected another small green egg and a small blue egg. Today somebody laid a huge green egg. Do you think it's from the same green egg layer that produced earlier this week or do I have another one starting to lay? As I understand it, the color of egg a pullet lays stays consistent, but does the size too?

Yes, it could be from the same chicken. My pullet (Wormy) laid a perfect miniature olive green egg on her first day. The next day I saw her lay a large egg. It ended up having 2 yolks in it. Wormy laid small eggs the next couple of days. Yesterday she gave everyone a huge laugh when she laid an egg so big it won't fit in a "large egg" carton!! Today she laid a small egg. They are all over the place on size at first so it could be from the same pullet.
I noticed that the smaller Wormy's eggs are the darker they are. It's almost like every egg is allotted an amount of pigment, but the pigment gets stretched out over a larger egg so the larger eggs look lighter. Just a thought.

 

[summerb123]

I have a question I hope someone can answer. I have 4 EE pullets almost 24 weeks old. 2 of them started laying eggs this week. I started out with 1 small green egg and 2 days later collected another small green egg and a small blue egg. Today somebody laid a huge green egg. Do you think it's from the same green egg layer that produced earlier this week or do I have another one starting to lay? As I understand it, the color of egg a pullet lays stays consistent, but does the size too?

it might be from the same one my leghorn hens just started to lay and layed a big one the other day it was a double yolker

 

[jenniferlamar70]

Has anyone ever created an easter egger leghorn mix? I'm curious how well they would lay...

 

[Sylvester017]

thank you for your help. I do have mixed size breeds (BO BA GC EE GLW & a BCM roo) and seem some get along better than others. I feel horrible cause they were the only 3 ever gotten pecked & with truSt issues. I always work with them. When they lay, will they tame down more?

Some breeds do seem to get along better than others. I've been reading the Bielefelder thread and those big dual purpose birds seem to have a good disposition. The Bielies are just a bit too heavy and big to keep in my tiny backyard. Some owners swear their Brahmas are gentle giants but again not for my tiny backyard. My reason to have chickens is to have pets first, eggs second. I cycled through 14 chickens in 5 years to get down to the gentle 4 hens I have now.

The jittery jumpy nature of EEs or Amers never seems to go away -- they are ever-watchful and overly-cautious -- they do get tamer around humans but sudden movements or sounds will still upset them. Being skittish is just their nature. I discovered when I had the heavier dual purpose or assertive layer breeds my Amer would not come up for treats with the group. After I re-homed the assertive heavier breeds into a friend's laying flock, my Amer started to approach for treats with the other gentle chickens. Even gentle breeds have to establish pecking order for smooth flock politics but in my case when the bigger heavier breeds matured by 2 or 3 yrs old their temptation was to harshly bully the smaller breeds -- I didn't want 7-lb chickens bullying smaller gentler 2-lb or 4-lb birds so I eventually had to re-home all the production and dual-purpose breeds. I don't mind the smaller or medium eggs in order to have a peaceful backyard.

Before we re-homed the bigger breeds our Blue Wheaten Amer would never come this close at treats time!


Here she is hearing her name to get her treat. The birds know to wait til they hear their name to reach for their treat. (it takes time & patience).


This Buff Leghorn turned out overly aggressive toward our Silkies and Ameraucana chasing and pulling out crests and beards so she was re-homed at one-year-old.


This White Leghorn was a gentle flock leader for 3 years but then she turned too assertive toward her flockmates. I choose to re-home aggressive birds before any injuries happen. My yard isn't big enough to divide big birds from my smaller gentler breeds.


This Cuckoo Marans was my only experience with Marans. My friend had several Cuckoos and BCMs and we re-homed all of them -- big bullies and a bit more stand-offish compared to other large breeds. These are good hens to keep in heavier breed flocks but not with bantams IMO.


This is what the 7-lb Cuckoo Marans did to our 2.5-lb Silkie on the roost at night before we realized she was NOT moulting - poor thing! I was new at backyard chickens 5 yrs ago and this incident made me aware of watching out for injurious bullies.

 

[summerb123]

Has anyone ever created an easter egger leghorn mix? I'm curious how well they would lay...

you just gave me an idea......I wonder they will look like!