First night of 13-14 hour "day" light...

[Ted Brown]

Four this morning. 2 hens & 2 pullet eggs I believe.

 

[Ted Brown]

Took the final water out and had a better look, found a 5th egg ("white" compared with most others).

 

[Ted Brown]

A little up & down, yesterday I got 3 eggs today 7! Has been 3 months or more since I received that many.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

 

[Ted Brown]

Ted, when a hen or pullet is not laying the ova that eventually grow enough to become a yolk are tiny. Also, the plumbing that makes up the hen's internal egg making factory shrink. When a pullet or hen starts to switch from not-laying mode to laying mode it can take a while to effect these changes.

I wanted to bring this back and confirm my understanding.

After a period of non-laying I should expect "all" eggs to be smaller regardless of age? For how long?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I wanted to bring this back and confirm my understanding.

After a period of non-laying I should expect "all" eggs to be smaller regardless of age? For how long?

No. When a pullet starts laying her first egg it is usually pretty small compared to what size she will eventually lay. But the longer she lays the bigger it gets, within reason. After her first molt the first eggs she lays could be slightly larger than the size she was laying before she molted.

 

[Ted Brown]

How long does it take for a pullet to start laying their full sized eggs?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ted, how high is up? How many meters or kilometers is far away? Some questions don't have great answers or the answers can be different for each or us. The starting point for a pullet may depend on whether she starts to lay at 18 weeks or 26.

A pullet's eggs will typically gradually get larger as she lays. The rate of growth is often fairly noticeable the first month but the longer she lays the slower that growth. Egg size can continue to grow for a couple of years but you might need to weigh the eggs and keep good records to notice the difference. Probably need to average the weights too so you avoid daily variance.

I think your real question is more along the lines of "when will you know if she will lay a small, medium, or large egg". I've never really paid attention to that. I'd think it would be within a month or two of her starting but I can't say for sure.

 

[fargosmom]

Egg size also varies sometimes due to changes in feeding. Our eggs are all bigger after feeding extra protein from our leftovers.

 

[Folly's place]

I agree, and have never tried to figure this out for individual birds.
As the hens age, they lay fewer and usually larger eggs, sometimes too large, as things go wrong in there. Also those very large eggs often become thin shelled and easily broken.
We keep hens 'forever' rather than culling at a certain age, so we see all these details. And I like to breed for healthy longevity rather than early high egg production and then early health issues.
Mary