RIR Egg Size

[lazy gardener]

Kudos to you folks who have the desire to keep records and spread sheets. I simply collect eggs, divide them into smallish and largish categories, box them up and sell them.

@Ridgerunner, I'm gonna hijack a bit here. Hope you don't mind @jthornton. What say you regarding cutting protein as a pullet approaches puberty. The grower feed in my area is 15%, while starter is 20%. When I've asked about the logic of that, I'm told that the protein is cut b/c older youngsters (is that an oxymoron?) don't need as much protein, and by cutting the protein, it slows their sexual maturity to give their body size time to catch up before they start laying. This makes no sense to me. While I do understand that onset of puberty does occur at an earlier age with increased nutrition, the flip side is that limiting nutrition may not allow the body to achieve it's maximum potential size. What say you????

 

[Creteloc]

@lazy gardener I've had a dilemma over that. Have you decided to keep them on the 20% starter then and substitute with oyster or did you move up to the 15% grower with oyster?

 

[lazy gardener]

I never use grower. I keep them on starter until they get their cluck. (their voice changes from peeping to clucking) Any time after they get their cluck, I switch them over to layer. You will hear from a lot of folks that they never put their birds on layer b/c there may be some non layers in the flock (roos, younger pullets, moulting birds, etc.) I take a much more casual approach. After doing the research regarding incidence of gout as it relates to the calcium content of layer, AND also regarding gout related to increased protein, and comparing that research to my personal experience, I am comfortable with my choice. You will have to read the literature and come to your own conclusions. However, there are times when I will take them off layer and put them on a higher protein feed: such as when we are having a huge cold snap, or when I'm conditioning layers before collecting eggs. No matter what the protein or calcium content, I recycle their egg shells back to them, and offer extra oyster shell on the side.

 

[Ridgerunner]

@Ridgerunner, I'm gonna hijack a bit here. Hope you don't mind @jthornton. What say you regarding cutting protein as a pullet approaches puberty. The grower feed in my area is 15%, while starter is 20%. When I've asked about the logic of that, I'm told that the protein is cut b/c older youngsters (is that an oxymoron?) don't need as much protein, and by cutting the protein, it slows their sexual maturity to give their body size time to catch up before they start laying. This makes no sense to me. While I do understand that onset of puberty does occur at an earlier age with increased nutrition, the flip side is that limiting nutrition may not allow the body to achieve it's maximum potential size. What say you????

First, my opinion is just that, my opinion. In my opinion, if someone wants to cram a lot of protein downs their chickens throat, they can. Unless you get ridiculous most of our chickens can handle that quite well. I have some qualms about the hybrid layers since they are specialists but for the others I really don't think it hurts them, bantam or full sized fowl. If you want to go low on the protein again they can handle it as long as you don't get ridiculous. The eggs may not be quite as big but production should still be pretty good and the chickens themselves can still be really healthy.

I think that if you feed them a high protein diet during puberty they probably should stay on a high protein diet later, if they have a lower protein diet during puberty then feeding them a really high protein diet later would probably not be a good thing. Part of that is just what their metabolism gets used to but part of it is that they will grow bigger bodies if you feed them a high protein diet during puberty. They will need more nutrients to maintain those bigger bodies. Conversely the smaller bodies don't need a steady high protein later in life and it could cause some overfeeding problems. I like starting them off on a 20% Starter o they feather out faster, but I've had broody hens raise them on practically nothing but what they can forage. I don't know how high that protein was but I suspect not very high.

I think maturity in when they start to lay can make a difference. Some of the stuff I'm about to say will probably upset some people but I'll do it to make a point. Just from a physical and health perspective I think it would be better for a 13 year old girl to wait a few years to have a baby, even if she is a tall big girl. As you well know it's not unusual for a pullet to lay some pretty funky eggs when she first starts to lay. The pullet's internal egg making factory sometimes takes a while to get all the kinks worked out. If production is delayed a few weeks that system is more mature and is a lot less likely to need to work out kinks. The higher the protein in their diet the earlier they are likely to lay (though we know what it can be like waiting for one to start) and the bigger the eggs will probably be.

Maximum potential size, or maybe "genetic potential". I'll exaggerate a little to make a point. Sumo wrestlers have shown us how humans can achieve maximum genetic size potential. My wife gave natural birth to a 10-1/2 pound baby. She loves that boy dearly but readily admits the two that were around 8 pounds were a bit more enjoyable at that time. I wonder what her potential genetic maximum size of a baby would be if she had worked at it.

I consider my hens have reached their genetic potential when they lay reasonable sized eggs for their body size and those eggs hatch healthy chicks when the eggs are incubated. I think the chickens have reached a great genetic size when they can take part in flock activities, chase bugs and just have a lot of fun, plus they can jump down from a roost without damaging their legs because they are so big. I just don't consider big for the breed as a trait I try to a achieve although I do eat my chickens. I want a reasonable size but I go after that by breeding, not by feeding them a lot of protein. And I'm quite happy to wait a week or two for them to start laying. I think they are healthier plus they are more likely to start laying in a nest. I think their is some benefit if they don't start laying quite so early.

You asked for my opinion, well you got it. I do think that the differences we are talking about are pretty minor, not that significant. The vast majority of the time it just won't matter, they can easily handle either regimen as long as you don't get ridiculous either way. To a certain extend much like splitting frog hairs.

 

[lazy gardener]

Thanks, so, what do you do with your chicks? Do you follow any particular routine regarding how long to keep them on starter? Do you then switch to grower (which for me, here is only 15%, or do you keep them on starter then go to layer??? OR????

 

[Ridgerunner]

I usually keep them on Starter for about four weeks, whenever the last bag runs out. The whole flock goes to Starter when the chicks are that young. Then I switch the whole flock to a 15% Grower. Oyster Shell on the side, of course. I never feed Layer, which is 16% protein but I practically always have immature birds in the flock.

Mine forage some, get excess and waste from the garden, and get kitchen scraps. On occasion they will get a trapped mouse or some other "special" protein like that, but that's pretty insignificant in the long run, pretty inconsistent. I really don't know how much overall protein they get.

 

[jthornton]

I got the first large egg this morning weighing in at 57g at 27.3 weeks. I've averaged medium size eggs (50-56g) for 3 of the last 4 days with no double yolk eggs to sway the weight.

JT

 

[jthornton]

It rained all day yesterday so I was playing around with my spreadsheet on the eggs and when looking at the distribution of egg sizes I got a much clearer idea of how the size is changing. Note that December only had 2 pullets laying for the last 12 days of the month. January the rest started to kick in paying rent and by middle of the month 7 were laying. By the 3rd week all 9 were laying on most days. The L, XL and J were all double yolk except for the L in February. The 2 fart eggs are not counted.

Month	<PW	PW	S	M	L	XL	J
December	17%	74%	4%	0%	4%	0%	0%
January	1%	28%	64%	3%	1%	1%	1%
February	0%	1%	57%	40%	1%	1%	1%

JT

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't know what your conclusions are. It might be really informative if you could track individual pullets but that is pretty impractical. Nine is a fairly small sample size so one individual could skew the results, especially when fewer are laying.

I'd guess that the December large and the later XL and jumbo were double yolkers. I wonder if it is the same pullet laying most of those even now, the increase in size might imply that. But even if it is one of the ones that started laying at an early age that continues to lay double yolkers a sample of one is really small to jump to a general conclusion. That looks like one double yolker in December and not many in the other months.

The less than Peewee numbers implies that the younger they are when they start to lay the smaller those first eggs are. In December that is probably only 4 eggs. I don't know if that was fart eggs or if they were just that small even if perfectly formed. Maybe fart eggs by the same pullet that laid the double yolker since both are an indication she had some bugs to work out of her egg laying system. Since you are not tracking individuals we'll not know if the ones that started laying early continue to lay smaller eggs later. My gut feel is it really won't affect future egg size.

I'm not sure what is going on in January and February. Based on when they started you'd expect the number and percentage of smalls to increase while the Peewee's decreased. With the number of eggs you were getting by the middle of January I'd have expected the numbers to be quite a bit different. I don't know if you did any management changes like switching feed to cause that but even if you did switch to a lower protein feed I would not have expected that dramatic a drop. Did you change lighting? With the days getting longer I'd expect them to eat a little more so just from that egg size should increase a bit. Did you bump your scales so they re no longer reading the same? I'm baffled by this one.

 

[jthornton]

All the L, XL, and J are double yolks except the one L I got yesterday.

All the <PW are just under PW size like 30g-34g in weight. I don't count the 2 fart eggs I've gotten so far.

You might have been looking at the table before I got it fixed, turns out the bbcode has to have a value in each table data or it just moves them over to the left. Took me 3 tries to sort that out lol.

So in January the percentage of PW decreased and the S increased. In February I got 1 PW and you can see the S percentage decreasing and the M increasing.

JT