How do I get my chicken to lay "smaller" eggs?

[monkahi]

I know most people want large eggs, but one of my girls is laying massive size eggs. A normal large egg is about 5 1/2" around by 2" long. My hen laid one that is 7" around and 2 3/4" long. I'm afraid it's going to do some damage to her. Her eggs just keep getting larger and larger. How do I stop this?

 

[monkahi]

and the massive egg weighed just under 4 oz.

 

[Fred's Hens]

What are you feeding and how much are you feeding? How much of a feed hound is this particular bird?

 

[Choco Maran]

How long has she been laying? As she gets older this should stop and go back to a more normal size egg if she is still young.

 

[Fred's Hens]

The reason I asked about feed is this. Commercial egg layer houses regulate carefully the feed and the protein of the feed to the layers. The retail outlets cannot use the hyper sized eggs, something many commercial Red Sex Links are somewhat known to lay, if their feed intake is too high and the protein content is too high. The ISA Brown flock management guide actually speaks to this issue. It recommends a 15% protein layer formula to produce "normal" size eggs, the size most commonly sold.

This information well known in the commercial industry. I can certainly testify that this also matches my own experience, especially with first year pullets.

Here's the afore mentioned management guide. You may find it interesting reading.

http://www.stonegate.co.uk/pdfs/isa_management.pdf

 

[monkahi]

my hen is only 6 1/2 months old, so she has been laying for about a month now.

 

[monkahi]

I just feed her laying mash. But I do feed them a lot of greens, they all really like dandilions

 

[monkahi]

I have 5 hens and they get 2 cups of feed twice a day