*2* eggs per day per chicken??

We have three ISA Brown pullets, bought as ready-to-lay several months ago. I guess they are probably about 6-7 months old now. All along, we've been getting 2 or 3 eggs (total) per day -- that is to say, each chicken lays one egg on most days and sometimes skips a day. Seems normal. They almost always lay in the morning before I put them outside for the day.

Then yesterday I went out there and found 4 eggs, all of which HAD to have been laid between 8 pm the previous evening and 8:30 that morning.

I figured it was a fluke.

Nope. Today in the nestbox were FIVE eggs, again all laid within a twelve hour period. By, remember, just three chickens.

Is this common? And honestly, is it okay for the ladies to be pumping out eggs *this* fast? Should I be doing something differently? The only thing that's changed recently, managementwise, is that the past week we've started having extra and damaged tomatoes so the chickens have been getting those... but not huge amounts or anything.

Baffled,

Pat and three overachieving chickens

Sounds like you're being visited by the egg fairy overnight!

I've never heard of this before, maybe someone who has will come along and fill us in.
It's a mystery, but its a good one if you're getting extra eggs!
I envy you

I don't know why it happens, either. Once we had 9 eggs in one day from 5 chickens. It hasn't happened since...Are you positive you're collecting them every day?

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Absolutely, beyond question. Likewise, all of these have been in the nest boxes, so there is no possibility of eggs having simply been overlooked from one day to the next.

I am glad to hear it has happened to other people too (I was starting to wonder if we've got some secret invisible chickens around here!) but it sure is a mystery and I'd still really like to know if anyone knows how the heck they DO this, and whether it can be discouraged.

Not that I don't appreciate the extra eggs in *principle*, mind you, but the fridge is getting rather full and we can only eat *so* many at a time <g>.


Pat

well you can send some of those eggs this way!!! My hens wont even lay for me... I only have 2 of them laying out of 40 and they take turns... 1 one day 1 the next. Go figure...

Well good luck in finding your answer!
Tes

Sounds like my hens are going over to your place to lay!

Don't guess your hubby or a neighbor is pulling a little trick on you? That would be my first suggestion. Except for a few rare cases, where maybe the hen laid at 8 p.m. then again at 8 a.m. once in a great while--I guess that would be possible, but usually they aren't capable of turning out more than an egg about every 25 hours. Officially, I have read about a Black Australorp hen - in Australia I think - who laid 364 eggs in 365 days. That is supposed to be a record. So 2 or 3 eggs a day doesn't sound likely. look around and see if anyone is watching this development with amusement. I suspect a jokester.

Ours has done that a couple of times. I know both eggs came from 1 hen because we only had 1 at the time, and I know they were from the same day because we would put her in the chicken tractor in the morning and them bring her into the house at night.

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Nope, sorry, I don't see any chance whatsoever. I can't envision my husband doing that -- anyhow, I know how many eggs are in the fridge each day and there aren't any unaccounted for. We don't have neighbors or visitors (live out in the country). Our oldest boy is three and, believe me, *always* supervised. So unless the mice in the barn have started laying big brown eggs, the extras pretty much HAD to come from the chickens and HAD to be laid 2-per-hen-within-12-hours.

I *know* the textbooks say it takes them 25 hrs to produce an egg, but I guess these particular chickens can't read

I am glad to hear a couple of other folks have had this happen... sounds like it is rare but within the realm of 'normal', whatever 'normal'
means for chickens <g>.

We only had 3 eggs today, 1 per chicken, so perhaps they've gotten over whatever it was. <shrug>

BTW, they're in the new tractor now, as of about 3 hrs ago... they seem to like it so far! Much clucking and scratching about.

Thanks everyone,

Pat

OK, I am not the only one with over achievers!!! I thought I was going crazy, with only 6 hens laying, i was getting2-3 eggs a day. In the period of one week I received over a dozen eggs. I could not believe it!!! I know not all of them are laying just yet either. I look at it as a blessing form the egg gods!!!!! - Now I have more eggs than I know what to do with