Yeah, Cindy you can get a lot of different information can’t you. I’ve read a whole lot of different things too but the one that I tend to believe is that it takes an average of about 25 hours for an egg to make its journey through a hen’s internal egg making factory. But that can vary just like a woman’s pregnancy varies. Some can be early, some late but most are going to be around 25 hours.
Also, I’ve read that a hen generally starts that egg’s journey about 20 minutes after it lays the last egg. There are other things that trigger that egg starting its journey too, like daylight. If it’s too late in the day she’ll skip starting an egg that day so she gets a break in the action.
I think this is a big one, some hens don’t lay every day anyway. They skip a day or two between eggs. Since daylight is involved in triggering her to start that next egg, these tend to lay about 25 hours after daylight.
Like Cindy said, most hens can hold it a while if they need to wait on daylight to lay that egg.
With all this stuff put together, a hen might lay any time of the day. But with enough being less than 25 hours between eggs, hens being able to hold it when they need too, daylight triggers to not start one late in the day, and hens that regularly skip days anyway the majority seem to lay in the mornings. I’ve had hens that lay practically every day and always by 9:00 am. I’ve occasionally found eggs laid just before they go to the roosts. Most of mine seem to gradually get later each day, then skip a day. They are scattered throughout the day but I do get more in the mornings that after lunchtime. And those really late ones are fairly rare.
