My youngest son has been keeping chickens for over a year. He had had a job at a children's farm (one where kids pay to see cute farm animals rather than one focused on food production) as part of his school work experience programme.
He took back a number of 'hens' most of which failed to lay eggs. One large Orpington failed to lay then started crowing and was duly returned, but his replacement stopped laying after a week. He was given a small "runaway" hen for free and she has consistently produced small eggs.
My wife bought four hens at a nearby freerange farm for 50p each in the early summer. They were uneconomic for the farmer but have proved regular layers for us... well except for one. One seemed a bit weak and sickly. Judging by the egg count one hen was not laying and we assumed it was the sickly-looking one. Before we left for Portugal instead of foraging for insects in the run she spent hours just lying down on the ground.
On our return our neighbour, who had fed and watered the hens in our absence, told us that she had died. Not only that but before her death she had produced a giant egg. She had obviously not died during laying as the egg was in the henhouse in the laying box and she died in the run. But it must have been traumatic!
On the left you see the 45 g egg from the little 'runaway' hen. In the middle is a typical egg from the hens retired from the farm - usually they are around 70 g. On the right is the giant 100 g egg from the hen that died. I have never seen such a large hen's egg. The perspective of the photo is not great but it measures 75 mm end to end.
2007-09-16 @ 10:19