On July 25, the Brown Leghorn (Ears, named for her bright white ears) laid her first egg.  It was so tiny it did not even seem real at the size and weight of an oval shaped ping pong ball. Despite all her issues with the other hens and Nurple the rooster, she consistently lays her little tiny eggs.  As in lays her eggs daily.  None of these chickens are daily egg producers, so this must be part of her transition into a hen.  You know, kinda of like trying on adulthood to see how what works best.  If she was a daily egg layer, her life span expectancy would be very short lived as it takes tremendous amounts of energy to lay an egg.

A couple of weeks into her egg production the eggs are still very small, comparatively speaking.  In the above picture, the brown egg is from the Barred Rock and the blue is from one of the three Ameraucana.  Both of these eggs are smaller than large white eggs from the grocery store.  So yes, her eggs are very small indeed.

Being new to egg production, all kinds of mishaps can occur.  The eggs can be all white with no yolk, double yolk, papery in shell, spotted or irregular shaped to name a common few abnormalities.  Another example are too small or too large eggs.  In the case of the Brown Leghorn it was an excessively large egg.

Now, I figure having eggs is like having children and the body adjusts for large eggs as it does for larger infants.  But if the human body has a limit on the size of an infant it can safely birth, then a hen must have a limit on the size of an egg she can produce.  With the strain of this large egg, you can just barely make out the wavy shell on the top of the egg, left hand side.  Wavy shells are stress indicators for hens.  Stress can be from weather being too hot or too cold, nesting box being too crowded, and from the natural age of hen to name a few reasons.  Continued stress during egg production can lead to early death.  

Hopefully the Brown Leghorn situates her egg production quickly.  In the past week, she has laid daily one tiny egg with today’s large egg being the exception.  At this rate of egg production, she will be past her prime before her age.  Hens without eggs are then chickens in a pot.  Maybe not a pot with her.  Maybe she will have to be a Cornish hen.  Cornish hen with lots and lots of side dishes.