Hello!
New member here and relatively new chicken owner with quite an odd flock, apparently.
Layers: 3 Black Star, 4 New Hampshire Red, 3 Dark Cornish, 4 Buff Orpington and 6 Jumbo Cornish X Rocks (yep, meat hybrids laying eggs).
The layers are just under 7 months old with the exception of the meat hybrids which are around 5 months old. When the first group of layers started laying I got lots of doubles. Every single egg heavier than 1.75oz was a double for nearly a month. As they aged the rate of doubles slowed but only by about half. Also got a couple triple yolk eggs. Few weeks of this went by and to my shock, the meat hybrids started to lay rather nice big eggs. Lots of doubles and even more triples. Few days ago I found a massive 3.415oz egg under a meat hybrid in a nest that only gets visited by hybrids. Figured something was up so I setup a camera on a tripod to capture cracking it open. Four yolks!
Anyone care to speculate to the cause? They are fed 16% layer feed and scratch grains. However the entire flock was put on meat/game bird feed after starter feed until they started laying. The hybrids also got meat bird feed until a few weeks before they started laying. The flock gets free range time every day, but they were pumping out 2 and 3 yolk'ers well before that started. My first thought was it might have something to do with the of the freak nature of having a hybrid around long enough to lay, but all the other doubles and a few triples suggests that something else is going on.
Thanks BYC! My flock would not be as happy and productive (albeit slightly mutant) as they are now without the knowledge I learned from all the great posts on here.
-Ross
New member here and relatively new chicken owner with quite an odd flock, apparently.
Layers: 3 Black Star, 4 New Hampshire Red, 3 Dark Cornish, 4 Buff Orpington and 6 Jumbo Cornish X Rocks (yep, meat hybrids laying eggs).
The layers are just under 7 months old with the exception of the meat hybrids which are around 5 months old. When the first group of layers started laying I got lots of doubles. Every single egg heavier than 1.75oz was a double for nearly a month. As they aged the rate of doubles slowed but only by about half. Also got a couple triple yolk eggs. Few weeks of this went by and to my shock, the meat hybrids started to lay rather nice big eggs. Lots of doubles and even more triples. Few days ago I found a massive 3.415oz egg under a meat hybrid in a nest that only gets visited by hybrids. Figured something was up so I setup a camera on a tripod to capture cracking it open. Four yolks!
Anyone care to speculate to the cause? They are fed 16% layer feed and scratch grains. However the entire flock was put on meat/game bird feed after starter feed until they started laying. The hybrids also got meat bird feed until a few weeks before they started laying. The flock gets free range time every day, but they were pumping out 2 and 3 yolk'ers well before that started. My first thought was it might have something to do with the of the freak nature of having a hybrid around long enough to lay, but all the other doubles and a few triples suggests that something else is going on.
Thanks BYC! My flock would not be as happy and productive (albeit slightly mutant) as they are now without the knowledge I learned from all the great posts on here.
-Ross
