Feeding questions

[Cochincorgis7]

I wanted to ask if there was anything I can give my chickens to increase the egg size. These are fairly new layers. They are blue australorps and they are laying eggs the size of bantam eggs. They get feed the dumor mini pellets and it has 16% protein.

 

[Loving my girls]

I really won’t worry hun, All starters eggs are small. They get bigger and bigger as they get the hang of it.
Australorps are generally good layers with a figure of about 300 a year, afraid I don’t know the egg size at maturity.
I remember one of my hens starting off with eggs the size of a marble (yeah really!) she was a leghorn (brain matured 2 weeks after death ) and eventually her eggs were like ostrich eggs - real beauties.
I’ve never heard of a way of increasing egg size and not sure you will need to.
I’m sure you will soon be enjoying terrific butt nuggets.
Hugz

 

[nuthatched]

Not really, egg frequency and size has little to do with diet since it's ovulation and that is a process dictated by the individual chickens body.
Higher protein feed might help their health in general but they will lay bigger eggs as their body gets bigger.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

I wanted to ask if there was anything I can give my chickens to increase the egg size. These are fairly new layers. They are blue australorps and they are laying eggs the size of bantam eggs. They get feed the dumor mini pellets and it has 16% protein.

Give them time!

All eggs start out pullet size.. Unless onset of lay was delayed for whatever reason or they are hiccups with multiple yolks. Or the other exception (in my experience) being the more commercial sex links that were bred for specific uniform traits.

So bigger eggs from the start is one bonus of ladies that start laying a bit later.. I'll take the cute eggs sooner if given the choice.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I agree, it is normal for an egg to be pretty small when a young pullet starts laying. A young pullet usually isn't fully grown so nature protects them by causing the first eggs to be smaller. Consistently laying larger eggs could possibly cause some medical issues with those smaller immature bodies..

The longer she lays the larger the eggs are. At first it is a fairly rapid increase in egg size but that increase in size slows down pretty quickly. Often after their first molt they will lay even larger eggs when they start laying again. It is interesting to watch.

The more protein they eat the larger the eggs will be within reason. The commercial egg laying operations use specially bred hybrid hens that have a fairly small body but lay a relatively large egg. With smaller bodies they can use more of what they eat for egg production instead of needing it to maintain their body. They typically feed a 16% protein ration. More protein in the feed and the eggs get larger. That could cause medical problems with their smaller bodies. Your Australorps are larger chickens than the laying hybrids so they can lay a larger egg without risking those problems. But they will also lay a lot of nice eggs on a 16% protein feed.