Bizarre laying schedule

[jnicholes]

Hi everyone,

I know I posted this already a while ago, but something new came up.

I have a weird pattern going on with my austra white. I've been tracking whenever she lays, and her laying schedule is VERY weird.

Eggs from her on the 9th, 11th, 16th, 17th, 21st, and 22nd of September.

If the pattern is right, I will get an egg from her tonight or tomorrow.

Still, why is her laying schedule so weird?

I can't figure it out. Can someone help me understand why her laying schedule is so weird?

 

[sourland]

How old is she?

 

[jnicholes]

How old is she?

She is 21 weeks 1 day old today. She started laying at 18 weeks 5 days old.

 

[rosemarythyme]

There's your answer, she's still a very young layer and it's normal for them to be inconsistent.

 

[jnicholes]

There's your answer, she's still a very young layer and it's normal for them to be inconsistent.

Pardon me for asking, but if that’s true, why are my two golden sex links laying consistently every day? Their new layers also.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Pardon me for asking, but if that’s true, why are my two golden sex links laying consistently every day? Their new layers also.

Because every bird is an individual. I added 4 chicks this year. 1 started laying about a month before the others, but extremely inconsistently with 2 noticeable breaks. She's now more regular with her laying. 2 more started the same week as one another and both are fairly consistent with a 26/27 hr lay cycle. The last 1 just started maybe 2 weeks ago, and she's kinda in between - she laid once, took about a week and a half off, and then has been laying somewhat regularly, but still too early to say if she'll maintain that.

 

[The Coop Crew]

Thanks for this! I was also wondering. We have a new layer and she was consistent for a little while but now it’s been 4 days since her last egg. I thought it was because we only have 12 hours of daylight right now so I added supplemental light (which can’t hurt I guess)

 

[aart]

Like @Blooie used to say:
"They're not Pez dispensers!"

 

[Mrs. K]

Golden comets are egg laying machines, they are specifically selected to be high production birds. I like having a few of these in the flock. The thing is there are egg laying traits in a breed, but also individual variations.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Pardon me for asking, but if that’s true, why are my two golden sex links laying consistently every day? Their new layers also.

There are different triggers that tell the pullet or hen to release a yolk to start the internal egg making factory creating an egg.

To release a yolk, she has to have grown one to the correct size. If she doesn't have a yolk ready she can't release it.

One trigger has to do with light. If she is doing it correctly, the light tells her when to release a yolk so that egg will be ready to lay during daylight.

I'm sure there are other triggers that I'm not aware of to regulate when she releases her yolk.

On average it takes an egg about 25 hours to go from starting to be put together internally to it being laid. This is an average, some are faster, some slower. Some lay every 24 hours after the start, some can go longer than 25 hours. One of the triggers to tell her to start another egg is that she just laid an egg. Some hens will lay at the same time every day. Most hens will lay a little later every day until they get so late in the day that they would be laying at night so they skip a day to get back on the daytime laying schedule.

Like @Blooie used to say:
"They're not Pez dispensers!"

Each pullet or hen is an individual. Some will lay two or three eggs a week. Some will lay 6 or occasionally 7 eggs a week. Breeds have tendencies for this but each is an individual trait. Even if they are the same breed they can lay a different amount of eggs each week. That's one of my frustrations on this forum. People tend to think that every hen of the same breed is identical. That is not even close to be true.

Finally, the egg making process is pretty complicated. A lot of different things have to work for an egg to be laid. Pullets just starting to lay may not have everything perfect. That's why you can occasionally get some pretty funky eggs from them. Most of those straighten it out in a few days or a couple of weeks if you give them time. That process is so complicated that I'm amazed that so many pullets get it right with their first egg. That is pretty impressive to me.