Poor girls

[sunny]

I would never have thought that egg collecting would be so exciting.
Two of my girls have laid the most ENORMOUS eggs today. And, they're different breeds, (one lays white and the other brown). Normally, they lay very average sized eggs with fairly regular larger double yolk. Haven't eaten these ones yet, can you get triple yolkers or even quadruples? And if you can, are they as good / healthy as single yolks? Poor girls, crossing my legs at the thought of it. Is it diet? Meantime, one of them isn't laying at all - (or hiding it in the garden) not sure which one, so maybe the 'group talk' I had with them yesterday made two of them feel they had to overcompensate for the one not performing!

[Richard]

It does make you wonder if it hurts them when they're that big!

Apparently though, the egg actually sueezes out soft and the shell hardens in a flash of a second.

In 7 years of keeping chickens I've only had about 6 double yokers but loads of enormous things which made my eyes water just thinking about it!!

Don't know about triples and quads?

Richard

[wibble5]

Just wondered, do anyone's hens make a weird squeaky sound while they're laying? One of mine does from time to time, and it sounds like a subdued squeak/screech, kind of like she's squeezing it out and it's painful! (They are quite big eggs.) She'll take quite a long time (good half hour) and then when she's finished she'll squawk quite a bit.

[morph]

Don't worry, mine do to and it's quite normal.

I always think they sound like they're giving birth - haha

[sunny]

I can usually guess when my 2 sussex are in the nesting boxes because they make loads of noise. Rather reminded me of the grunting tennis players I watched during wimbledon. And once they've laid, judging by the noise and flapping about, they want to let the whole valley know they've done it! Btw, we ate the enormous eggs, both double yolks, each big enough to make a really good sized omelet on their own. Delicious.

[Dave]

if you dont squeeze them so hard they dont make such a loud noise!

[b_cos_1_can]

oh dave