How do you know when your hen has laid it's last egg.

[Cirrus12]

I'm still new to the world of chicken, so new that I don't have any yet. I'm hoping to start next spring. Anyway. I've read lots of comments and post about turning their hens that have stopped laying into soup. What I don't completely get is, how do you know when a specific hen has stopped. My plan is to have 3 or 4, if i go out to the coop and find 2 eggs, how do I know which one it came from?

 

[JanetS]

Our chickens are our pets so we don't care about when they lay their last egg. The breed of the chicken determines what color egg they lay. My white leghorns of course lay white eggs. The bigger one lays the bigger egg. The RSL lay brown eggs.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Some people use trap nesting to tell who is laying. I can tell on most of my eggs which ones are laid by which hens. There are a few that it is more tricky on.

Generally, a hens production will decline each year. I have some 4 year old hens. Some if them are still laying 5-6 eggs a week. Others are quite sporadic. One hen laid eggs for a couple months in the spring, but hasn't laid anything in over a month now.

 

[Mickey Lou 04]

I originally started with 6 sexlinks and 2 americauna crosses. At three most of my sexlinks are still laying most everyday, but we are seeing a decline in egg production. As for recognizing who layed what you could buy three different breeds that lay different colored eggs, such as americauna, (green egg) polish, (white egg) and welsummer. (dark brown egg). Another way to tell is that each hen has her own unique " starting " shape, I say "starting" egg shape because I've found that even though there might be some differences there is always that foundation (starting) shape and color. If you got all the same breed take a day to sit outside and when ever you hear a layers call see who it was and what egg. After a few times you should see a similarity in the individual hens' eggs.