[Dans]

Hi all,

Wondering if you have any advice about a hen laying small eggs. One of our Cream Legbar hens laid very well last year (we bought her as POL in Feb 2016), she gave us regular eggs weighing about 55g. Over the autumn she was a bit depressed, not going after corn at night when we put it down but eating pellets and scratching for grubs fine. We brought her into the house one night as she seem quite off but was happy as larry the next morning so went back.

She recently (tail end of last month) came back into lay but we've had a few eggs that have been smaller than her usual fair (~45-50g) which I thought maybe the winter has been hard on her and affected her or maybe she is just getting back into the swing. She laid a good sized egg the last couple days and I thought 'brilliant she is back on form' but today she has done a tiny 22g egg. We've never had an egg so small.

Is there something wrong with her that I can help her with or is this just her now? She seems young to be completely knackard, although she was one of the hens that the breeder was selling as she wasn't up to breeding standard so maybe this is related?

Dans

[doganjo]

What did the breeder mean by 'not up to breeding standard'  Did that mean size?  Is she a small bird?  I don't know the answer, but I get the occasional tiny egg - about the size of a pigeons one, quite often with no yoke

[Charlie1234]

Hi All
I have had a similar problem in the past but I found that feeding too much corn over the winter caused it with my birds,they laid on so much fat as laying became very hit+miss and always smaller eggs.

when i processed them the fat inside was thick yellow and clogging them up..so now if i do give it over the winter it is about an egg cup full.

[Dans]

Ah I may well be over feeding corn, and being kept in the run when Tey are used to free ranging probably hasn't helped.

[member=168230]Charlie1234[/member] do you mind if I ask is that an egg cup per hen or split between a number?

Think I will be reducing the corn ration and they are coming out of confinement next week so the extra exercise should help.

[member=26320]doganjo[/member] I took it to mean the markings weren't quite right but you're right that it could mean anything really. My two Cream Leg bars do have quite different markings as do the 3 Brown Marsh Daisies. I was quite desperate at the time to have some company for our rescue Cockerel so was grateful that anyone was selling me anything *sigh*.

I'll be interested to see if there is a yolk in this egg, it is just so tiny. Been a bad egg day all round. Cracked a goose egg and two chicken eggs, so decided to do omelette for dinner to use them up then toddler decided to have a very late clingy nap on me so I couldn'the cook and hubby got all fluey so we ended up with take away *sigh*

Dans

[Terry T]

I've had several chickens that come back into lay in spring with small eggs. Size picks ip quite quickly usually.
The tiny egg is probably an eggless yolk as others have suggested, I think they are called wind eggs which is also quite common.
I don't yhink the two things are related and I'm sure you'll be back to good eggs next time she lays. 

[Marches Farmer]

If she's otherwise healthy you may well find that restricting the diet to boring layers pellets and the passage of time bring her right again.  Cotswold Legbars are a modern composite breed but should be fairly well fixed in appearance by this stage.  Might she have had something else crossed in more recently?

[chrismahon]

Egg weight is reduced if the hen has a worm burden- in our experience egg weight increases after Flubenvet treatment by about 10%. The 'wind' egg should normally be be a one-off, although we have a hen that laid 10 in a row and now lays nothing.

[Victorian Farmer]

I feed net box dog feed to get them in condition. They need good feed to get them up to speck.

[Bramham Wiltshire Horns]

funny enough my kraienkoppe came into lay this morning and has laid the tiniest of eggs it was her first egg and should get alot bigger

also my coucou de rennes came into lay also so must be in the air

[Dans]

They were wormed in Jan ready for the supposed let out at the end of the month so should be in pretty good health in that aspect. Fingers crossed it was just a wind egg or was an over indulgence of corn. I'll cut back the corn and cross my fingers that she lays a nice egg tomorrow.

Dans

[Charlie1234]

Ah I may well be over feeding corn, and being kept in the run when Tey are used to free ranging probably hasn't helped.

[member=168230]Charlie1234[/member] do you mind if I ask is that an egg cup per hen or split between a number?

Hi Dans
I give the egg cup full per 6 hens just before they go in at night,now spring is here and we have the lovely welsh weather  I do not give any corn or treats.
Once they get out and start ranging they should loose some fat.

[Dans]

Well it wasn't a wind egg, it had a tiny yolk in there! But she does seem to be back to laying normal eggs now so was hopefully a one off. We have cut back on the corn now. Still a fair bit more than an egg cup per 6 but a hell of a lot less than we were giving 

And the hens are out now and running around so they should start burning off that winter fat soon.

Dans