The White Queen - our silver-laced Wyandotte pullet

One of our new chickens, The White Queen, has started laying (4.5 mo old SLW). It began a few days prior with a submissive squat, followed by frantic searching for ‘The Safe Place’.  Mostly this involved poking about the yard after having leaped out of the run in a weak spot.

I knew what she was up to – so I locked her in the coop. Sure enough, she produced a beautiful egg, perfect in every way – except for its size. It was tiny!

I do not remember the first eggs of our first hens being particularly small, but they were 1) different breeds, 2) fall-born, and 3) older, and therefore larger, when they began laying at 6 months.

Eggs layed on the same day; compare Greta's egg (Ameraucana) with that of the White Queen 'pullet egg'

The eggs of our White Queen changed quickly in shape from her first very pointy egg (not shown) to the more oval ones she produces now, but they have not grown appreciably larger in the past month.

Because I patched the weak spot in the run to limit her laying options, she is now more comfortable laying in the coop’s nest boxes, but if the Big Chickens are around she would rather look for a spot outside the run – the Bigs still terrify her 😦

I have since learned that pullets (young hens) produce smaller eggs that grow in size, presumably as they do – becoming larger after their first winter moult.  I am curious for our other pullet to start laying!

Pullet eggs on left, assorted eggs of our older hens on right