Age timeline for laying eggs?

[IonaFarm]

Hi! Another newbie here. Is there a source for finding the age, to begin laying, of various breeds? I have BR, Orp,LH,EE, and Cochins. All are 14-16 weeks old. I have found color, size and frequency but not starting age. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bturbo87]

Chickens can start laying anywhere between 4 to 8 months old. Production breeds usually start laying earlier than others. Breeds that you buy from hatcheries and feed stores usually lay earlier than breeds bought from breeders. But regardless it still depends on the chicken. Hope I helped.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It is possible for a chicken to start laying at age 16 weeks, but most start laying much later. Your EE and Cochin will probably be later than the others. I had 23 pullets. You can se the breeds in my signature. The first one started laying at 18 weeks. Two weeks later, two more started. In another 2 weeks, two more started. So I had 5 out of 23 laying by age 22 weeks, but I had 18 that were not laying. Most had started by age 27 weeks. It will vary quite a bit by individuals even of the same breed, but maybe you can get a rough idea of what might happen by what happened to me. My better layers were the ones that started laying a bit later, so there are some advantages of not rushing it too much.

 

[pgpoultry]

Your cochin will probably not start laying until about 6 months old. However they live much longer than production birds and will probably still be laying in 7 or 8 years time. Hybrids will have long since flown to chicken heaven,

Sandie