Sunday, August 20, 2017

Welsummers Laying @ 22

We approached the egg laying situation different this time, with our Welsummer pullets. Our first flock of Welsummers took at least 23 weeks for the first to start laying.  And they were awkward, constantly breaking their eggs or flipping them out of the nest.  I think the last of the three layers finally started laying about 26 weeks in.

This time, I kept the nesting area boarded up until they were 20 weeks. Then when I opened it up, I put a lot of soft grass hay along with a fake ceramic brown egg in the box.  On August 13, we got our first egg. We've been getting an egg each day, so I assume that we have at least two laying eggs.  We will give it a month before we start providing oyster shell, to ensure that all the gals are laying.  We don't want to cause any kidney damage to any of the ones who may not yet be laying. 

The eggs are about half the size of the older Welsummers.  A little misshapen, but they look fine on the inside.