First post (and first egg)

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Harknbark

Hatching
Aug 7, 2016
1
0
7
Niagara
Hello folks, I've been reading posts on backyardchickens.com for months now, and finally got around to joining. My family started at Easter when I brought home 8 day olds chicks, and we ended up only keeping 3 as 5 turned out to be roosters, and that's a no-no as I live in town. No worries, the boys all found decent rural homes. But, my first question for the group is a math question. I was never good at math, but since our birds were born Easter Monday, I think they're 19 weeks old. So I was a bit surprised this afternoon when it looked like we lost one of our hens. We looked everywhere and I finally found her in one of the recently installed nesting boxes I added to their coop. And a short time later, my daughter discovered our first egg. Now, as egg-citing as that is, is this too early? The egg itself is small and soft, thin-shelled. I don't imagine it's edible. So is this just what you would call a trial run? Should I expect this daily now? One of our friends said don't expect eggs till they're about 22 weeks old and we got our first one a day shy of 19 weeks. Is this normal?
 
Greetings from Kansas, harknbark, and :welcome. Pleased you joined us. Congrats on that first egg! Some breeds will start earlier than others and 19 weeks isn't uncommon. That first one might be thin-shelled as the hen is getting her system in gear. I'm sure the shells will harden up - do the hens have access to oyster shell? Good luck to you and enjoy those farm fresh eggs! :cd
 
My sex-links started on their 4 month birthday. Well 1 of them. The 2nd laid the next day.
A week later, I'm still waiting on 3 girls.
I started switching to layers feed at 16 weeks and all 16 eggs are perfect all are between 42 and 50 grams.
Slowly getting bigger. GC
400
 
Hi and welcome to BYC - you have some great advice already so I'll just say hello!


All the best
CT
 

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