First eggs at 17 weeks!

[ccarver80]

Went into my chicken coop this afternoon to check on my chickens and I happened to look in the corner and there were nine small eggs hidden! I was pretty excited since I was planning middle of September for eggs.

They were relatively small about the size of a golf ball maybe a little bigger shells are hard and one was kind of a spotted brown all my egg layers should be brown egg layers so that might have been the latest egg.

When they are this small can you eat them?

When can I switch over to a layer feed the youngest ones are probably only 13 weeks old.

When and how do you feed them oyster shells

 

[trailrider330]

Congrats on your first eggs!

Any idea how long those eggs have been in the corner? As long as they are still good, I do not see any reason you could not eat them. Pullet eggs do tend to be a little bit smaller than a hens so it may take a bit to get "normal" sized eggs.

Any chance you can separate the 17 week olds from the 13 week olds? I usually wait until around 20 weeks to switch over to layer feed, but if they are already laying you might want to switch the 17 week olds over now and then keep the 13 week old on grower feed.

 

[ccarver80]

I have no clue how long they were there, I'm using them in the nesting boxes to show them where they NEED to lay them lol,


And there's no real efficient way to separate them. I might just keep everyone on starter till the last batch is 20 weeks so maybe end of sept.

 

[chicken 101]

i feed them oyster shells at 13 weeks that is what i do dons not mane you have to you do not have to do any thing unless you want

 

[ChickenMammX4]

I kept all mine on grower crumbles with oyster shell available separately untill they were all laying.

 

[aart]

Congrats on your first eggs!!


I like to feed a 'flock raiser' 20% protein crumble to all ages and genders, as non-layers(chicks, males and molting birds) do not need the extra calcium that is in layer feed and chicks and molters can use the extra protein. Makes life much simpler to store and distribute one type of chow that everyone can eat.

The higher protein crumble also offsets the 8% protein scratch grains and other kitchen/garden scraps I like to offer.

Calcium should be available at all times for the layers, I use oyster shell mixed with rinsed, dried, crushed chicken egg shells in a separate container.

Animal protein (mealworms, a little cheese - beware the salt content, meat scraps) is provided during molting and if I see any feather eating.