Why are her eggs so small?

[NorthChicken]

I have a speckled sussex (hatchery) that has been laying since February. Her eggs are barely bigger than my cochin bantam! Here is a picture of her egg compared to my barred rocks (hers is on the left). I don't consider the barred rock's egg huge by any means, so it just shows how small the sussex's egg is. They are normal looking, nice, orange yolk and tasty, but I am wondering why so small. She is about 8 months old and lays very consistently. Do you think she will ever lay eggs that are any bigger considering she has been laying for 3 months already?

 

[Mountain Peeps]

This may just be her egg size. All hens lay eggs of different color shades and of different size. However, she may be lacking water or calcium. One of my hens went without water and calcium for only a day and her eggs literally shrunk.

 

[NorthChicken]

I do have water and oyster shell out 24/7, but she free ranges pretty much all day. Do you think she knows enough to come back and get water if she is thirsty, I hope?

 

[Mountain Peeps]

Yeah s

I do have water and oyster shell out 24/7, but she free ranges pretty much all day. Do you think she knows enough to come back and get water if she is thirsty, I hope?

Yeah she should as long as knows where it is.

 

[donrae]

I think at 3 months she's pretty well where she's going to be. I have hens that lay smaller eggs, sex links that lay huge eggs, and inbetween. Honestly, I was never that impressed by my speckled Sussex for either egg size or production.

 

[sbhkma]

My SS are very regular layers-5 a week from each of them. But they're quite a bit smaller than my cuckoo marans' eggs. They look about the size of yours. They're 14 months now and this is as big as they're going to get but they make up for it by being so sweet and such great foragers. They have access to water in 3 different places, always have access to their feed plus free range for about 6-8 hours a day so it's not lack of water/food-it's just the way they are.

 

[NorthChicken]

Ok, at least I feel better that I am not doing something wrong! I will forgive her small egg size since she makes up for it with a great personality, she is one of the sweetest chickens. I will have 9 more layers by fall, so I should have plenty of eggs to make up for the small ones!