Pullet Bullets?

[Cathie in UT]

I am a new to chicken raising so all of the is new to me.
My largest SL started laying eggs quite early at about 15-16 weeks old and on the whole lays 4-5 eggs a week. She has been laying about 2.5 weeks and the eggs are what I would call small to medium and a nice light brown.
Just wondering if the eggs will be getting any larger or will most likely stay this size? They are consistent in size except for the one double yolker she laid as her second hard shelled egg that was a bit bigger.
I finally have one of the others laying just today and her egg is quite a bit larger more of a store bought large or maybe slightly smaller size.
It has been fun checking out the coop each day for the eggs and if they stay this small it's OK, I was just wondering!

Also the second layer gave me a deeper richer brown egg and wondering if it would be one of the other 2 SL or maybe the RIR. I am pretty sure the BO isn't ready to lay as her comb and wattles are still a soft pink.

Thanks for any help on this...BYC has been so very helpful just by reading the forum posts

 

[Percheron chick]

It's pretty normal for their first year to be smaller eggs especially that first month or two. After they go through their first molt, their eggs get larger. Impossible to say who's egg is the darker one. You just need to watch the hens get off the nest and match the eggs. Every hen will have her color and shape so they are pretty easy to identify. Helps you identify the layers and the liars.

 

[Cathie in UT]

OK, I just wondered with the second layer with much larger eggs. I will just keep and eye on the girls and see how Maudie's eggs look.
She is pretty regular for eggs so I shouldn't complain right?

 

[bobshere]

Two of my girls who have recenttly started laying have pretty erratic egg sizes and colors. They started with small eggs, to medium to jumbo then back to small...I have one girl who layed 2 jumbos 2 days in a row. I thought wow she is going to lay us jumbos all the time. Next day she was back to a small egg.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The hen’s internal egg making factory has a lot of parts. Sometimes it takes a while for the pullet to get all the kinks out of her system when they first start to lay. You can get double yolkers, no yolkers, no whites, soft or no shells, and all kinds of other weird eggs. Most straighten out really quickly. What’s amazing to me is that so many of them get it right the first time.

Those pullet’s bodies are smaller than they will be when they mature. Nature normally protects them by starting them off laying small eggs with the eggs getting gradually bigger as they lay and grow. Like Percheron said, when they go through their first adult molt, the eggs reach a real nice size, but they will get larger before they go through that first adult molt. Don’t fret about that one laying larger eggs to start with or the huge double yolkers. They can normally handle that fine.

Each hen is an individual. They will lay different color, size, and even shape eggs based on genetics. The basic color won’t change, but the longer they lay the lighter the egg is likely to get. Their shell gland makes a certain amount of pigment once they get all the kinks worked out. As the eggs get bigger that pigment has more shell to color so you might see a lightening from that. Plus when a pullet or hen is not laying they store some chemicals to help them generate that color. The longer they lay the more that chemical gets depleted. The actual color comes from recycled dead red blood cells, so they never run out of the raw materials but something they need to process it runs low. The darkest an egg will ever be will be the first egg they lay either when they start or after a molt.

Don’t read much into that egg color shade by breed stuff. Unless the person selecting which eggs to hatch uses egg shell shade to select those eggs, you can quickly get a wide range of shades for the flock. Egg shell shade is not a high criteria for most hatcheries so you can get a real wide range of shades even from the same hatchery flock.

What you describe sounds normal. Congratulations on the first eggs.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

The hen’s internal egg making factory has a lot of parts. Sometimes it takes a while for the pullet to get all the kinks out of her system when they first start to lay. You can get double yolkers, no yolkers, no whites, soft or no shells, and all kinds of other weird eggs. Most straighten out really quickly. What’s amazing to me is that so many of them get it right the first time.

Those pullet’s bodies are smaller than they will be when they mature. Nature normally protects them by starting them off laying small eggs with the eggs getting gradually bigger as they lay and grow. Like Percheron said, when they go through their first adult molt, the eggs reach a real nice size, but they will get larger before they go through that first adult molt. Don’t fret about that one laying larger eggs to start with or the huge double yolkers. They can normally handle that fine.

Each hen is an individual. They will lay different color, size, and even shape eggs based on genetics. The basic color won’t change, but the longer they lay the lighter the egg is likely to get. Their shell gland makes a certain amount of pigment once they get all the kinks worked out. As the eggs get bigger that pigment has more shell to color so you might see a lightening from that. Plus when a pullet or hen is not laying they store some chemicals to help them generate that color. The longer they lay the more that chemical gets depleted. The actual color comes from recycled dead red blood cells, so they never run out of the raw materials but something they need to process it runs low. The darkest an egg will ever be will be the first egg they lay either when they start or after a molt.

Don’t read much into that egg color shade by breed stuff. Unless the person selecting which eggs to hatch uses egg shell shade to select those eggs, you can quickly get a wide range of shades for the flock. Egg shell shade is not a high criteria for most hatcheries so you can get a real wide range of shades even from the same hatchery flock.

What you describe sounds normal. Congratulations on the first eggs.

X2 - and the bolded is so true, it is really quite mind boggling once you sit and think about all that goes into making each egg.

 

[Dizzywitch]

I am a new to chicken raising so all of the is new to me.
My largest SL started laying eggs quite early at about 15-16 weeks old and on the whole lays 4-5 eggs a week.  She has been laying about 2.5 weeks and the eggs are what I would call small to medium and a nice light brown.  
Just wondering if the eggs will be getting any larger or will most likely stay this size?  They are consistent in size except for the one double yolker she laid as her second hard shelled egg that was a bit bigger.
I finally have one of the others laying just today and her egg is quite a bit larger more of a store bought large or maybe slightly smaller size.  
It has been fun checking out the coop each day for the eggs and if they stay this small it's OK, I was just wondering!

Also the second layer gave me a deeper richer brown egg and wondering if it would be one of the other 2 SL or maybe the RIR.  I am pretty sure the BO isn't ready to lay as her comb and wattles are still a soft pink.

Thanks for any help on this...BYC has been so very helpful just by reading the forum posts

I'm so glad you asked the question Cathie! My RIR laid her first egg yesterday and it's so much smaller than the eggs my game hen lays who's just a tiny girl with a big attitude. In the meantime, I'll just keep smiling every time I hear the egg song

 

[Cathie in UT]

Ridgerunner: Thanks so much for the post. It helps to understand a bit more about how my girls might be functioning LOL
I didn't know where the color comes from so that was new one for me!

Yesterday Maudie, the one who has been laying the small eggs layed one the same size as Janet who I figured out was the second layer having "caught" her in the coop in the next box.

Maudie is a SL and so is Janet but Maudie is almost the same size as Edna the BO who is the same age and Janet is smaller. I should be having three more come "online" very soon but maybe Edna because I understand BO's take the longest to start laying.
Will be interesting to see what size egg Maudie lays today.