Self Conscious about Size

[MomFoldingLaundry]

Okay, so I ordered some eggs off ebay, and they are ENORMOUS. Literally twice the size of my quail's eggs. Now I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong. I have noticed some of my eggs are small lately, as a couple of Hens are new layers. But I've never seen an egg the size of these eggs that came in the mail.

Do my quail have island dwarfism? Are the news ones going to be a different species once hatched?

Will they be able to be kept together in the same coop?

Have any of you ever experieeve do this??

(all the quail I have and eggs I've gotten are from the same hatchery, which is in Hawaii. Maybe quail are bigger on the mainland?)

 

[Kale the Quail]

Do you have any pictures of the two sizes of eggs? maybe beside a ruler?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Are the bigger ones maybe jumbo eggs?

 

[Fenrisulfr]

Especially new layers lay very small eggs. Some call them fairy eggy. Just wait some time, they will get bigger.

 

[Ravenlover]

Would love pics this sounds interesting

 

[FloorCandy]

My original eggs, and then the eggs laid by those who hatched from them were small in comparison to others I’ve seen, but the next generation were a good bit larger without me adding any outside bloodlines. I was starting to think maybe the original eggs just came from a setup with sub par nutrition or something, and once they had a full generation out of that they were larger.

Then I ordered hatching eggs from a hatchery and had them shipped. The eggs were huge compared to mine, they don’t fit well into the brinsea quail trays for example. However I had a lot of birth defects and issues. I spoke to a lot of people, including a vet and a vet student, who said those issues are often seen in birds where the parents had poor nutrition. So nutrition doesn’t seem to dwarf eggs lol. Those birds , now adults, are the same size as my birds and lay larger eggs in general. So it is probably just a difference in what they’ve been bred for. I would not worry about your egg size too much. If you want to breed larger layers, you can just start setting only the really big eggs, and after a few generations you’ll probably have huge egg layers.

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

I'm thinking you got jumbo coturnix eggs. You're right that most of the birds in Hawaii are smaller. I got hatching eggs from the same place you did and I've purchased chicks from two other backyard coops. When I look at the pictures BYC users are posting, their birds -- jumbo or not -- are much bigger.

I just found out a neighbor raises jumbo quail here on Oahu. I could ask him for hatching eggs. However, it sounds like you just received a batch. Can't wait to see how they turn out.

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

. . .Are the news ones going to be a different species once hatched? . .

LOL. If they don't hatch within a reasonable 17-day window, maybe.

 

[MomFoldingLaundry]

I messaged the seller to ask about the eggs, and It turns out that these are not hatching eggs in the first place. >.<

Don’t know how I missed that detail on the eBay ad!

Oh well. Guess I’m stuck with my small layers for now.

Honestly, my original girls are bigger thaN most of my recent girls, and I think it’s because my original rooster was very small.

I’ll have to work on getting my flock larger again.

 

[hew]

Read a research paper that showed that you get the largest eggs when the hens are about 16 weeks old. The eggs from a hen will tend to keep increasing in size up till then. Last year I began selectively breeding a couple batches of claimed jumbo eBay pharaoh eggs that averaged 12g. I just kept selecting the biggest eggs for the next hatch and this week I was able to hatched out my 9th batch using eggs between 15.5 and 17.5g. I wont go much above 17g because I read that birds that are too big may develop leg problems.

As mentioned, nutrition is also important. One tip you can try is to feed the young chicks only high protein feed that has been finely ground (like fine sand) for the first 2 weeks.