Knowing how to make chickens lay big eggs from start of their lay is a secret of egg production many won’t tell you. If you are in doubt, you can ask around or browse some more. In fact, the truth is that not many people know that laying birds can start with big eggs. The norm that everyone is familiar with is for layers to start with small eggs. Some chickens at that stage will even lay peewee eggs which are not marketable. But you can get a different experience on your farm.
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Another thing is how to make chickens lay more eggs, which means we need both quantity and good size. A lot of people have resolved to getting egg booster for layers, some of which cost them extra money. That is if you even get the results that the boosters promise. So without wasting much of your time, I will be sharing with you, what to do to get larger eggs from your birds that are just starting to lay.
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But I Have to Tell You – this is not something you will be able to achieve if you are in haste to see the first egg.
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The Need to Delay Laying to Get Big Eggs
Contrary to what most farmers usually expect, you cannot allow your chickens to start laying at 17 weeks if you want them to have large eggs at the beginning of their laying. Depending on what you want, you can expect eggs from 22 weeks and above. But this is not automatic. You don’t just wake up one day and tell your chickens not to lay eggs until 24 weeks. You need to do something to suppress their laying in order to allow them to mature anatomically and physiologically.
The Role of Maturity in Big Massive Eggs
It will be out of place to expect a young laying chicken of 18 weeks old to give you eggs that can be classed as large, extra large or jumbo. In reality, some chickens of this age will even give you peewee eggs – those small eggs like that of a lizard. When a laying bird is allowed to mature properly without forcing it into laying, you get large eggs. This is because the chicken’s body has been allowed to grow to the size that can produce very big eggs. The size of a chicken’s eggs is usually in proportion with the size of the bird’s opening at the distal end of the oviduct.
How to Suppress Egg Production to Get Big Eggs When You are Ready
For those who have been looking for how to make chickens lay more eggs, you must have come across the role of lighting. Lighting plays a vital role in eggs laying, setting a daily minimum exposure to light for a chicken to lay. If the laying ability of a chicken then depends on its exposure to light, this means that we can take advantage of the science. Even if you have never followed a lighting program, you can reverse engineer the principle of exposure too light and suppress your chickens’ egg laying ability to give them some extra time to grow.
Please note that proper growth of your birds will always involve some extra time. It is not just about a target weight, otherwise, you will overfeed your chickens and get a negative result. That is, they will have excessive fat lay down which is counterproductive for laying birds.
READ ALSO: How to Promote Uniformity in Broiler Chickens
How to Use Lighting to Delay Egg production
Getting your chickens to lay big eggs is a science so, let’s talk some science here. It is crucial in understanding why light is important. Egg production in chickens largely depends on two light parameters – intensity and length. When a hen is exposed to sufficient lighting hours and intensity, it bring about adequate release of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH). These hormones are responsible for the growth of the ovarian follicles and the release of the ovum respectively.
This means that when hens are denied access to the amount of light they need, the farmer is able to suppress egg production. Let’s not forget our ultimate goal – to allow the chickens to mature fully before they start egg production.
Benefits of Suppressing Lighting
When you learn how to make your chickens big eggs, you automatically increase your profit margin. You are wondering how this will be? Let me show you.
Forget about the few weeks that your chickens will not lay eggs. It is only to your advantage. Research has shown that hens that start laying after 22 weeks tend to lay more eggs than those that begin laying from 17 or 18 weeks. In other words, chickens that mature well before laying also attain the highest peak compared to early starters. Another thing to note is the you will hardly experience prolapse on your farm. And prolapse does not only cause temporary cessation of laying in affected hens, it can cause death if not well managed.
Poultry Farming is a science, and as such, we should be able to manipulate some elements to get the results that we desire. From a professional angle, this has been confirmed effective in getting large eggs and more eggs from laying birds beginning from their first week of laying.
Because learning is a continuous process, kindly share any thought on how to increase the size of chicken eggs in the comment section.
