Giant Eggs: How big was that hen?

You won’t see eggs like these in our cartons. As a hen gets to be 2 – 3 years old, the size of her eggs increases. But the trade-off is she may produce a few fewer eggs each week. So usually we sell most of our hens as they reach 24 – 36 months of age. But don’t worry there’s a new batch each year to replace them. Our current model has us buying in 3 batches of 100 day-old chicks each year (more on that in another post). The younger birds keep laying better in the winter when short day length has hens slowing down on the number of eggs being laid. These will be when you see our offering of “pullet” eggs, the small, first eggs produced by a young hen, also known as a pullet.

Back to the big eggs. Mom (Nancy) was raising Simmental cattle when she and Steve met. In the 1980s, this breed of cattle was sometimes criticized for being “too big for the box”. Just like our eggs, most beef is shipped in standard-sized boxes, and the large frame of the Simmental cattle sometimes meant wholesale cuts that were too long to fit inside that box. With our hens, they are not any larger than any of our other birds, just laying a bigger egg due mostly to her age. So to answer the question, giant eggs do not actually equal giant chickens.

However, these big eggs are often double-yolked. Double yolk eggs mean that the hen “hiccuped” and released 2 yolks close to the same time in her reproductive tract. Some folks love those eggs for baking, but we cannot consistently produce more of those. For great baked goods, give our duck eggs a try.

Egg A = 3.15 oz. w/ double yolk

Egg B = 3.55 oz w/ double yolk

Egg C = 3.65 oz.