We’ve had our new chickens for just over a month now and we thought they were 17 weeks old, which meant that egg laying was still 7 weeks away. But, for a couple of weeks now we’ve collected almost half-size eggs (think Cadbury’s Creme Egg dimensions) every day, and some days more than one. That can only mean one thing; one or more of our new hens is popping out eggs a little prematurely.
That would explain the size, but the new girls’ combs are nowhere near sizable yet, while their legs are still more yellow than white (the brightness fades as maturity nears). They could just be older than we thought of course, but then should the eggs still be so small? if we were in any doubt, I opened the pop hole to the nest box to find one of the new Rhodies sitting on a very warm, small egg.
It was the right colour, too, so we might have our answer. Our older chickens all lay eggs or varying shades (Barbara lays white, Gerry lash flesh colour and Margot lays brown) and although these have differed in colour each day, why would they be suddenly laying smaller eggs? Yes, they have been down in count over the winter as we had expected them to be, but now that we’re back up to collecting a more sustainable number, why would they then shrink in size?
So many questions. We’ll definitely watch the situation, but yesterday morning, did I accidentally find our phantom egg-layer?
Tags: Chicken-keeping, Journal