Suggestions for Getting Larger Eggs?

[so lucky]

My 5 LF girls are a year old, and laying consistently, but the eggs are small. Only one hen produces an egg close to 2 ounces. Most of them are around 1.5 ounces. They get laying pellets, meal worms, frozen Japanese beetles, a few table scraps, small amount of mixed bird seed daily. Water all the time. There is calcium free choice. They free-range about 3 hours daily. Their breeds are EE, White Rock and Production Red. What else can I do?

 

[johncv]

i give mine raw and cooked eggs. from 4 weeks and older. all my chickens grow huge. all my eggs are huge. the only eggs that are not big and my bantam eggs but compared to other bantam egg i see they are bigger. also i do suet balls. go buy suet from the feed store melt it down then mix in wild bird seed and put in a container of your choice and size and put in the freezer and hang in the coop and they go nuts its full of protein and fat.

 

[ChicKat]

My 5 LF girls are a year old, and laying consistently, but the eggs are small. Only one hen produces an egg close to 2 ounces. Most of them are around 1.5 ounces. They get laying pellets, meal worms, frozen Japanese beetles, a few table scraps, small amount of mixed bird seed daily. Water all the time. There is calcium free choice. They free-range about 3 hours daily. Their breeds are EE, White Rock and Production Red. What else can I do?

I do think I have heard that the more feed the larger the eggs.

You may want to experiment with a little reduction in bird seed and increase in layer pellets. Think about how much they eat--- the average hen eats 1/4 to 1/3 cup of feed per day per hen.

Also, don't forget how important plenty of fresh drinking water is for your chickens. It is mostly what eggs are made of, and having plenty of water will definitely help your egg production. (nice fresh cool water-- especially good with 1-tablespoon of apple cider vinegar per 1 gallon of water.) If you are sure that they have plenty of feed and plenty of water...you may think about worming them to be sure there are no parasites sharing their meals.

If it seems that they aren't eating enough, you may try putting a little water into their feed to make it more moist---and they may eat more because it will be such a treat.

 

[so lucky]

Thanks for the replies. I was giving them suet occasionally when it was colder. I also gave them scrambled eggs a lot when I was getting free duck eggs. Right now, we are eating all the eggs the girls produce. Neither of those seemed to increase the size, tho. I guess I can cut down on the bird seed; it has added sunflower seed in it so I didn't think it would be as unhealthy as straight scratch or cracked corn. But they don't really need it. They never eat all their pellets, so I am pretty sure they are not hungry. I can tell when I give them more protein, the production seems to go up. But so far, not the size.

 

[ChicKat]

Hi So Lucky,

there's gotta be something that would help

http://www.poultrypro.com/poultry-a...g-programs-for-laying-hens-diet-and-egg-size/

This one, or a variation on it might be FUN!!
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Zoo_p020.shtml

Here is one too:
http://www.worldpoultry.net/background/controlling-egg-size-8393.html

You may want to do a Bing search or a Google Search to see what others are doing/claiming to increase egg size. I just think that the chicken keeper must be able to do something if the eggs seem particularly small.

 

[Lute]

Just a thought... how much protein are they getting?

 

[so lucky]

It would be hard to say, since I don't measure the meal worms, sunflower seeds and kitchen scraps that they get.

 

[ScottM]

I've heard that the egg size generally gets larger with age, isnt it natural that eggs start out smaller?