Young Carlow farmer Charles Nolan has made his bid for the record books with Ireland’s largest hen egg.Twelve-year-old Nolan, a sixth-class student at Newtown Dunleckney National School, has had a hen lay a 125g egg, nearly three times the average egg weight of 50g to 70g.
Young Carlow farmer Charles Nolan has made his bid for the record books with Ireland’s largest hen egg.
Twelve-year-old Nolan, a sixth-class student at Newtown Dunleckney National School, has had a hen lay a 125g egg, nearly three times the average egg weight of 50g to 70g.
The productive hen was Nolan’s first, a black feathered hen called Coffee.
“We got Coffee last year and she was my first hen. We’ve 36 hens [now],” he told the Irish Farmers Journal at the Ploughing.
Carlow farmer Charles Nolan with his hen Coffee and her large egg.
Large egg
The egg, brought safely to the Ploughing and back, was laid by Coffee on Sunday 17 September. Nolan had the sizeable spheroid scientifically weighed by a team of scientists at Carlow IT, with 125g being its official weight.
The hen’s egg has a length of 7.7cm and a width of 5cm, according to photos shared by Nolan.
The large egg compared to a regular egg and a coin.
“We think it’s one of the largest eggs ever recorded,” he said, as he described how Coffee is a regular top performer in his growing flock.
“She gets fed loads. She’s probably our fattest hen and she always lays a really big egg, always. She always lays the biggest egg we have,” Nolan said when asked for the secret behind the hen’s success.
Nolan acquired Coffee, his first hen, in 2022.
Honesty box
The young Carlow poultry keeper runs an honesty box where he sells the eggs from his hens, collected daily.
“We have an honesty box outside on the road and people pull in and buy them then. We have it as an honesty box so people give what they feel it’s worth,” he explained.
The growing business, on the road between Fenagh and Newtown in Co Carlow, has been a great success, with Nolan adding that it has helped him keep a steady flow of pocket money.
The large egg weighed 125g.
The hen-mad youth said he would like to be a farmer in future and that he plans to study agricultural science in school and college.
“Yes. I would like to be a farmer. I’d like to be a tillage farmer. [I’d like to grow] barley, maize, beet, beans, oats,” he said.
Well done to young Nolan and his hen Coffee for their egg-cellent feat.
The egg was scientifically weighed in Carlow IT.
Nolan submitted egg measurements to the Irish Farmers Journal.
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