Hen Chronicles: Maybe size does matter

One of our Rhode Island Reds

If I had given it any thought before we started keeping chickens, I suppose I would have assumed that a hen will lay eggs that are consistently small, medium or large from the get-go. I did have a vague inkling that egg sizes vary among breeds, but not that the size may also depend on a hen’s age.

In this matter, I was clueless. It turns out that new layers produce undersized eggs at the outset, even if they belong to a breed known for its hefty offerings. “A pullet starts out laying small eggs, but as time goes by her eggs reach normal size for her breed,” Gail Damerow writes in The Chicken Encyclopedia.

So it is with our two Rhode Island Reds, who only began laying in July, right around the time they reached six months of age.

Hope and Nellie are remarkably productive, at least so far. Each of them is cranking out an egg a day. But their eggs are noticeably smaller than those produced somewhat less frequently by Snow and Nala, our older Plymouth Rock and Barred Rock.
 

The Reds’ eggs are growing bit by bit from week to week, but so slowly that the change is incremental. If size matters in this context, Hope and Nellie still have a ways to go to catch up with their coop mates, although their small eggs are every bit as tasty as the larger ones.

There’s more at stake here than the poultry equivalent of keeping up with the Joneses, however. The Rhode Island Red, which has been around since the 1850s, is a breed with a reputation for laying large eggs. So Hope and Nellie have well over a hundred years of tradition to uphold. In effect, the honor of the family name is at stake.

From left to right, the 1st, 3rd and 5th eggs were laid by Nellie and Hope, the new kids in the coop. When they began laying last month, their eggs were even smaller than they are now.