question about eggs

[vettech82]

Hi Ive had my chickens for 1 week and I'm curious about their eggs. One of my hens has been laying medium size brown eggs. Then yesterdayshe layed a smaller brown egg. Is it normal for the size to differ? If so what makes one egg big one day and small the next? thanks so much

 

[midget_farms]

Variation is normal - you may even get an occasional egg with no shell (gross). For the little eggs what I believe happens is this. A small part of overy or other internal bits break off when the ovum is released. The shell builder portion of the chicken will gift wrap anything that comes across the desk so to speak, & then you get a tiny egg.

As they get older this should regulate & you will see less of this kind of stuff, but its perfectly normal.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Was the small egg normal, meaning, did it have a yolk? Did it have any egg white? Was the shell normal?

It normally takes 25 hours from when an egg starts the journey through the hen's internal egg laying factory until it is laid. There are several different processes from the time the yolk starts the journey until the egg is laid. If everything goes right at each phase if this assembly line, then you get consistent sized eggs. It is kind of amazing that so many hens get it right, but occasionally you get one that may have something wrong with her internal egg laying factory. Most get it right from the first egg, but some can lay pretty weird eggs for the first week or two when they first start laying while that internal assembly line works out the kinks. So it is possible that something is not quite right in her internal egg laying factory, especially if she has just started laying.

A typical example of this is that a hen normally releases the yolk on a regular schedule. Whether this is at the same time of day for those that lay the same time each day or every 25 or 26 hours for those that seem to lay at different times of day, it is a regular schedule for that hen. But if a hen releases a yolk to start that journey too early, you can get huge double yolk eggs or two eggs laid the same day. If you get two the same day, the second usually has a soft shell since the shell gland did not have time to develop and store enough shell material for the second egg. She normally skips laying the next day too.

I'm speculating a bit on this one. I know stress can cause some egg problems including stopping them from laying but I'm not sure it can cause eggs of different sizes. If something stresses the hen when the egg is in a certain phase in that internal factory, the egg may be affected. Stress could mean something frightened her at the wrong time, maybe they ran out of water. The move to a new place or a change in the pecking order can cause stress, but if she is laying, she is probably over that.

Are you sure it was the same hen? I know it is a basic question, but I have to ask the obvious.

That's about all I can thing of that might change the egg size from day to day. Good luck. Hipefully it was a fluke.

 

[vettech82]

thank you so much for the replies. Yes the egg is completly normal. I'm almost positive it was the same hen becasue she kicks all the straw out of her box. The others don't do that. today though the egg she layed was normal size. I dont know what happened. lol