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This is an old strain, you can turn the lights out for weeks and these girls will keep laying. Only when there's a freeze, then they clamp up and say you want me to do what.? "I'm not going to freeze my behind off. Well if you insist, here's a little 4g for breakfast. Enjoy." Honest, I heard them talking about going on strike. Last night I got 20/35 eggs, adn they are still going back to size.
No these gals start laying early and yes by the time they have been laying for a few weeks you have your 15g eggs and now its regular to get 17g from all ages. Yes, the yolks are big to match the size of the eggs. Don't stress on the egg weight or you are going to miss your best breeders. Look at the size of the breast meat under that skin and the thickness of the legs. You know you got your big girls then when those areas keep getting bigger. Now the boys need work, I admit that. But when I match them up I try to let the girls pick their own mates. It seems to be working. I pay attention to who those big girls let hang out in the sand box with them. Those boys get big too, it just takes them longer.
I am pretty sure that if you select your breeders before they start laying you will miss the best ones. Go ahead heres an experiment for you: weigh before they lay and leg band them, then every week up through week 8 or so and band the biggest each week. See who has the most leg bands then. I only weigh at 6 and 7 weeks, but not all have 2 leg bands, but those are my best breeders I use the one band girls to fill in. Remember, its not this batch that is important, its the next one, the one that you are selecting breeders for. Until they stop gaining size, then they have reached their full potential. My birds have not reached their full potential yet. So I am still selecting for size.
The F1's were bigger sooner and this batch of F2's are chubby things with some heft to them already, at 2 weeks they look like smaller adults. THey only had a few days of being in the ugly stage. I weigh when I get ready to start selecting for breeders and only then. I weigh only when they start to put on their adolescent weight and that includes the eggs, if they are early breeders. You need to see the pelvic spread to select your breeders, you are not going to see that until they start laying. Little butts do not lay big eggs, but wide hips do. The eggs get stuck and you do not want those hens in your line if you are breeding for size because their daughters will have the same problems - its genetic. So if you have a big girl and she has a narrow pelvic spread, she will not be a good breeder. I have not had this problem since the first batch, so I don't stress about it.
One thing I do different than some is grind their feed for the first week or so. They do eat more. I just compared Purina startena to the Lonestar Starter/grower brands. Purina is 3x larger crumble, so that is when I started grinding and forgot why. Lately, I had to bite my pride and go get them some Lonestar and noticed immediately, and knew why I ground it. I already had a little grain mill so its no big deal for me. But it might be important in getting them off to a good start, because these babies hatch ravenous. I am not the only one that grinds and has big birds.
