Egg size = Chicken size?

[lazy gardener]

A dozen posters, 14 opinions! A lot of things affect egg size AND chick size, AND the potential size that chick might attain as a laying hen. A leg horn is a fairly small bird, has an excellent feed conversion rate, and lays an egg that is quite large compared to her size. Some large breeds lay eggs that are not very impressive in size. Some strains within a particular breed lay larger eggs than an other strain of that breed. Give your birds excellent nutrition starting with the adults that produce the eggs, choose your best (not always the largest) eggs to hatch, provide excellent nutrition for your birds from hatch through adulthood, and continue to choose your best eggs from your best layers, and you will breed a flock that is superior to hatchery bred stock.

If you incubate a pullet egg, the chick will be smaller at hatch, and may have some neonatal difficulties to overcome. But, if the correct genetics are there, and the chick has excellent nutrition from hatch through her life time, she has the potential to achieve the same size as her sister who came from a larger egg.

One thing I find myself questioning is this: Is it possible to go too far in providing excellent nutrition to the parent birds when collecting hatching eggs? I always give my birds fermented feed and either green forage or sprouts. Prior to collecting eggs for hatching, I put my birds on multi-vits. I have noticed that there are some chicks that, in my assessment are so large that they are not able to get into correct hatching position. Could it be that too much nutrition is the cause of this issue? My dad used to raise and show sheep. I remember conversations with him when I was much younger, where he mentioned that it was necessary to decrease the protein for a pregnant ewe so that she didn't have a still born lamb. I continue to assess, ?, and have not yet answered this question for myself.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

It will hatch a larger chick but not likely a larger chicken when fully grown. As you correctly pointed out in your previous post, genetic and environmental factors do apply. Of course hatching a larger chick does give the chick a head start on the smaller ones.

Hey, I actually had a conversation with my husband that we were BOTH interested in! He used to breed dogs.

And then I considered my own children's birth. I was only 16 when my son was born via c-section at a whopping 10# 1 oz. Fast forward 26 years and he is 6 feet tall.

In the end our conclusion was that in the long run the genetic material is there and they will grow according to their predisposition and the environmental/nutritional factors thereafter and reach their full potential just maybe a little later. So for raising layers it might not matter how fast they reach their potential in size. But if you are raising meat birds for younger harvest, then it would matter more.

But now regarding standard breeding and flock keeping and not wanting to diminish my quality of birds by breeding pullets that might have hiccups in their reproductive system still... I still believe you will get better quality birds hatching from hens in their prime verses very young or older. (I know that isn't what the original question is).

In conclusion you will get bigger chicks from bigger eggs. But the size of the chicken is relative to it's original genetics and environmental factors more than the size of egg it hatched from. Also agree with @Akrnaf2 that surface to volume ratio is the main reason for not incubating different sized eggs together.

Thank you all for a fun little learning session!

 

[DR ARNETT]

MY FAMILY & I HAVE BEEN BREEDING LIVESTOCK SINCE 1832. we have bred -cattle, horses, goats, llamas, peafowl, pheasants, quail, ducks, geese, chickens, American bison, swine, sheep, alpacas, & one uncle even had emus, & we have found, & others agree, that if you breed your largest males to your largest females regardless of species you WILL get larger stock. this is true of crops also bigger pumpkins lead to bigger pumpkins better yields come from planting the biggest & best of your seed. state fairs know this A7M schools know this, and now so do you. good luck with your breeding program. GBA