Hens laying tiny eggs again?

[ChickenTater]

Hey guys! So my 5 hens will be 9 months old on the 11 this month (December) and I noticed something strange today when I went to collect eggs. There were only 2 eggs, which didn't surprise me since my one hen is molting and they hardly ever all lay in the same day. But what surprised me was the fact that the eggs were so small! This hasn't happened for many months. They've all been laying pretty normal sized eggs up until today.. Here's a picture:

The two larger eggs are the ones I collected yesterday. The two tiny ones in the middle are the ones I collected today. The larger and smaller brown eggs might be from different hens, but I know for a fact that the little white egg is from the same one that laid the bigger white egg, because I only have two brown leghorns and the one is molting (and not laying) right now, and those are the only ones that lay white eggs.

What concerns me is why they're laying such small eggs again. I know this is only the first day I've noticed it since they started laying larger eggs (about 5-6 months ago, they stopped laying "peewees"), so it could just be a fluke.

Some things I'm considering that could be the cause: the weather is getting colder. I live in Louisiana, so the weather really doesn't start to get chilly until around this time, and today we had a very cold, rainy day. I also changed their feed last month, but I switched them over gradually over a 1 week period. Could either of these be the culprit to the tiny eggs? Or is it just a fluke?

I'll be monitoring their eggs for the rest of the week, or until I see normal sized eggs again.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Sometimes you see the tiny eggs as they are starting to shut down for a break, so that could be what is going on. They are more common as hens are starting or shutting down.

 

[micstrachan]

That makes sense to me. I had one random tiny egg, too. Plus there have been a couple funky, chalky, slightly misshapen eggs. The eggs from my 6-month-old pullets are still smaller than my hens’ eggs (though only 1 of 3 hens is laying right now).

 

[chickenthyme]

Guess I'm curious about this too. I have 6 Rhode Island reds and at least 4 of them lay pretty consistently and not long after I had them, I got one of these teeny tiny eggs and I blamed it on change of location from where they were or that they were all still rather young. Within this last week, I have almost consistently had 6 eggs every day until today and now I have another teeny tiny one. Nothing unusual but we are getting lots of rain this week.......

 

[ShellyBlanco]

I have a 9 month old Brown Leghorn who is molting. She started molting about three weeks ago. She generally laid about six eggs a week, she has been off lay for a little less than three weeks. In the first week of December, her brood buddy was killed by a hawk. That same day she laid two eggs, one normal and one much bigger than normal. She laid intermittently for about a week, then went totally off. Now she is in a full blown molt. Her pin feathers are coming in and for a few days her comb was shriveled. She hangs out with the rooster because most of the rest of my flock pick at her (prior to the molt and after her buddy was killed). I'm concerned.