...5 eggs today. The most we'd gotten before were 4. All five were medium sized, light colored. We have two chickens who are laying pretty large eggs, quite dark and speckled. I wish I could figure out which chickens were laying those. They are never in the nesting boxes but just on the ground under the coop.
But 5 eggs from 7 chickens is pretty good!
Do chickens ever lay more than one egg a day?
How long before those medium size eggs become large eggs?
Gwen
A new record...
5 eggs from 7 chickens is very good!
I think it would be very rare for a chicken to lay more than one egg in a 24 hour period...not that it never happens, but it would be due to a malfunction.
Egg size is genetically controlled and very individual. The first egg tends to be very small, then a pullet will start laying medium sized eggs. Some of my pullets regularly lay medium sized eggs, with others the egg size does increase over time. The rule is that the first season they lay smaller eggs, but more of them. The second season and every year after they lay larger eggs, but fewer. So, if you have a pullet that is laying medium sized eggs this year, she may go up to larger or extra large next year. If her eggs are large the first year, they will probably be extra large or jumbo next year.
But it is individual.
Wow, cuz then I have two of them that started out laying extra large! Those are the darker brown speckled ones. The others have all laid medium sized. I think they are very slightly larger than the first 2 or 3 we got, but definitely what I would call medium size.
My breeds are 2 buff orpingtons, and 1 ea black star, black astrolorp, barred rock, white rock, dominique. Any idea which 2 are laying the large darker eggs? All the other eggs, as I said, are medium size and are various shades of light tan. None are white.
The darker eggs are on par with the lighter shades of a maran egg. So I was pretty surprised when those started popping out. Esp since the size too!
If the chickens are all the same age and the early eggs are the darker brown and larger--I would guess the Black Star, or secondly one of the Rocks. The Black Star lay brown eggs, start laying early and lay large eggs...Rocks also start earlier and lay large brown eggs.
My Buff Orpingtons and Australorps lay medium sized lighter brown to pinkish tan eggs. Dominiques are also suppose to lay medium size eggs.
The Henderson Breed Chart is always fun:
http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html
Actually, all the books and charts say that Cochins lay small eggs--but I just hatched some standard Cochins and the eggs they came from were Extra Large if not Jumbo....I couldn't close the egg carton on them.
This message was edited Jan 5, 2010 5:55 PM
That helps. I'm pretty sure the white rock is among the medium, light tan layers, so it must be the black star and perhaps the barred rock laying the large dark eggs.
The very first eggs we got were the light tan ones. But pretty quickly we started getting the large brown ones. It was interesting how they all started laying pretty much at the same time. We had thought maybe no one would lay til spring, since they all came into laying age in the November time frame.
I have Barred Rocks and Buff Orpingtons. They all lay large light brown eggs; I usually can't tell them apart. The Rocks started laying earlier, however.
I have young Cuckoo Marans and Cherry Eggers. It's handy that their eggs are so different in color; the Marans are dark, of course, and the Cherry Eggers are a nice light tan. The Cherry Eggers lay larger eggs, so far, it looks like, although that may just be my old White Rocks. The Cuckoo Marans' eggs are smaller but are gradually increasing in size. Both are laying really well. We have ten Marans and 15 Cherry Eggers - and about ten old White Rocks who had slowed down as winter came on - and we're getting about 17 eggs a day. We got the chicks the first week of July and I didn't know whether they'd lay this season or not.
I got mine the first week in July as well. Wow, 17 eggs a day - what are you doing with all of them?
We actually had 40 new chicks; half the Cuckoo Marans were cockerels and they are now in the freezer. And then we got 15 Cherry Eggers. We have people we sell eggs to, but because our supply is so iffy we don't have any regular orders. When I have eggs I email or call people and tell them they're available. We also supply our kids with eggs, but that's just two dozen or so a week. When we have a ton of them that doesn't make a dent in them. Years ago when we had extras I used to donate them to a family with a lot of kids, and now sometimes my son brings extras to the pastor of the church my DIL belongs to. Or he gives them to his in-laws. Probably time for me to start emailing again....