Easter egger pullet

[Leo1]

Anyone had an EE go into lay as early as 16 or 17 weeks? I've got a little girl showing signs and she will be 16 weeks on Monday. Carrying on, hips spread, comb getting fatter and redder. This is too early and I may give her a deslorelin implant to delay her some. Just curious if anyone has had an EE this early. My earliest, in the past, was 24 weeks.

 

[hysop]

Edited to add: I am so sorry. I thought I was in my other thread. Long day.

 

[hysop]

Anyone had an EE go into lay as early as 16 or 17 weeks? I've got a little girl showing signs and she will be 16 weeks on Monday. Carrying on, hips spread, comb getting fatter and redder. This is too early and I may give her a deslorelin implant to delay her some. Just curious if anyone has had an EE this early. My earliest, in the past, was 24 weeks.

I barely got Easter Eggers this month so no experience there. But I’ve had chickens start laying around 4 months.
I bought my first flock as chicks in mid-March of one year and they began laying that same year by the end of July.

 

[aart]

Anyone had an EE go into lay as early as 16 or 17 weeks? I've got a little girl showing signs and she will be 16 weeks on Monday. Carrying on, hips spread, comb getting fatter and redder. This is too early and I may give her a deslorelin implant to delay her some. Just curious if anyone has had an EE this early. My earliest, in the past, was 24 weeks.

Don't do that....it's not too early.
Could still be a week or three before she actually lays.

 

[Cindy in PA]

I've had EEs lay at 18 weeks, so not too early.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll apologize for my rant ahead of time. Some people may be offended but there is so much misinformation out there.

People talk about EE's as if they were breed. They are not. There is nothing standard about EE's. Some are made by crossing a colored egg layer with another chicken. Some are from colored egg laying breeds that don't meet the breed SOP. The original EE's from Chile were not a breed, they were farmyard mutts that laid colored eggs. Some hatchery EE flocks are based on these original EE's from Chile many decades ago.

Don't think about that pullet as an EE, think about her as a chicken. That's what she is, a chicken. I've had chickens start to lay as young as 16 weeks. 16 weeks is pretty rare but 18 weeks is not for a few but most of mine wait until after 20 weeks. I don't have control over that, they lay when they lay.

When they do start really young the eggs are typically really tiny. That's nature's way of protecting a pullet with a small body. You can do what you wish but I would not mess with that process. The more I interfere the more harm I do.