First Eggs - Question

[Mylied]

Hi! I was surprised to discover our first eggs today. My six chickens are only just over 17 weeks (I got them as new chicks, so I'm sure of the age). The other surprising thing was that they were brown eggs when I have all white chickens, some sort of Leghorn mix I would guess. I let my chickens run around the fenced in front yard sometimes and when I went to let them out today, I spotted a brown egg underneath their favorite bush. After checking out the coop I found 4 more eggs. I think one chicken isn't laying yet, as she still has a really pale comb compaired to the rest.

So here's my main question. We weren't expecting eggs for a few more weeks so we've been feeding them grower crumbles. Is it alright to finish out the bag before buying the layer pellets or should I switch over now? Thanks for the help!

 

[AlienChick]

You can go ahead and finish out the bag of grower pellets you have.

You can also provide them with some egg shells after breakfast to give them back some calcium.

If you already purchased a bag of oyster shell, you can add a little to their pellets, or provide it in a separate small dish.

The extra added calcium will help keep their egg shells hard.

Congratulations on your new eggs!!

 

[Mylied]

Thanks Alienchick! I actually have oyster shells for my hermit crabs, so I will give the chickens a bowl of it in the morning. I hadn't thought of that, so I'm glad you mentioned it.

 

[acemario]

Congrats! We got our first eggs this weekend also! I plan on finishing out the bag of grower's feed. I was surprised that the shell was quite hard!

Once again, congrats on your eggs! Were they just pee-wees?

 

[Mylied]

They were all different sizes actually. So almost makes me think that one chicken might have been laying for the past 5 days and I didn't notice until the one under the bush, which was a decent size. I don't look in the nest boxes too regularly since I wasn't expecting anything yet. Congrats on your eggs too!

 

[Mylied]

Here they are. The smallest one is about 1 1/2" long and the biggest is about 2" long.

 

[easteregger96]

You might have white rocks. They are white chickens that lay brown eggs. Leghorns lay white eggs.

 

[Mylied]

I got the chickens from the mixed pullet bin at Tractor Supply, so I was just guessing based on what people said on here before. Here's a pic of one of the ladies.

 

[Simmonsfunnyfrm]

They look like White Rocks to me. Leghorns have a lighter bone structure. Congrats on the eggs! another thing you can do to determine what color eggs the hen will lay is to look at her earlobe. If it's white, they will lay white eggs. If it's red like the rest of her comb and wattles, they will most likely be brown. Unfortunately, you can't use this to decide for Easter Eggers, it mostly helps if you want to know if you have a white egg layer on your hands.

 

[donrae]

Pretty white Rock hens. Congrats on your eggs!

When hens start laying, they have enough calcium stored in their body to sustain egg laying for quite a while, so supplemental calcium isn't necessary. It's nice to have, but they're fine without it for quite a while. It gets more important as they get older, or higher production breeds like sex links seem to need more calcium.

You might get shell-less or soft shelled eggs when your girls start laying. This doesn't mean there is a calcium issue, just that her body is working things out.