I have several chickens, but four pullets just now at 19 or 20 weeks, what I would consider point of lay, with another of different breeds about four weeks behind them.
The Welsummer, Shirley, laid first, last week. Then the next day, Ellen the bantam Cochin laid her exquisite little egg. Both of them used the nest boxes! RIR Rhoda and the Barred Rock Betsy are the two left of the "closest" pullets. Yesterday I found a pale tan/pink egg in the run. Just sitting there. Dunno who it belongs to.... my grown SLW Lacey's eggs look like it, but she laid in a nest box the same day, so it wasn't one of hers. (Lacey sometimes chooses different places to lay but NOT out in the open like that.)
Also, my Cayuga duck Thelma laid HER first egg yesterday ... in the run.... but today she laid a 2nd egg in a nest she made under a rose bush. I saw her building the nest and gathering bits of dead grasses to line it and cover the egg. After she left the egg, I gathered it. (After all, she didn't stay there..... so if she's not broody, she's not getting to keep the eggs.)
Shirley, Ellen, Rhoda, Betsy and Thelma are all 19 or 20 weeks old. (I lose track when I have several groups of young pullets.) The next batch in two months or so will be Delilah the Delaware, Gilda the EE, Joy the Golden Sebright, and Alice the Silver Sebright. I think they're 10, maybe 11 weeks old right now.
The Welsummer, Shirley, laid first, last week. Then the next day, Ellen the bantam Cochin laid her exquisite little egg. Both of them used the nest boxes! RIR Rhoda and the Barred Rock Betsy are the two left of the "closest" pullets. Yesterday I found a pale tan/pink egg in the run. Just sitting there. Dunno who it belongs to.... my grown SLW Lacey's eggs look like it, but she laid in a nest box the same day, so it wasn't one of hers. (Lacey sometimes chooses different places to lay but NOT out in the open like that.)
Also, my Cayuga duck Thelma laid HER first egg yesterday ... in the run.... but today she laid a 2nd egg in a nest she made under a rose bush. I saw her building the nest and gathering bits of dead grasses to line it and cover the egg. After she left the egg, I gathered it. (After all, she didn't stay there..... so if she's not broody, she's not getting to keep the eggs.)
Shirley, Ellen, Rhoda, Betsy and Thelma are all 19 or 20 weeks old. (I lose track when I have several groups of young pullets.) The next batch in two months or so will be Delilah the Delaware, Gilda the EE, Joy the Golden Sebright, and Alice the Silver Sebright. I think they're 10, maybe 11 weeks old right now.
