Determining Who is laying?

[Carebear5]

Any ideas for determining who is laying which eggs?


I have 2 Golden Sex-Links, 2 Black Sex-Link, 2 Barred Rock, and 2 Americaunas (which I'm guessing are not true Americaunas from what I read - that's just what the store called them).

I'm getting large dark brown eggs (sometimes with darker speckles), med/large light brown creamy eggs, and med/small very light brown eggs.


I hear squawking - but when I run out to check who is laying, I'm too late or for some reason 2 are leaving the coop at the same time. I'm pretty sure one barred rock and one black sex-link is laying - but I can't determine which egg is which.

I'm getting no blue eggs but I'm wondering if the little med/small very light eggs are actually my Americaunas (since I think they are more of a mixed chicken not true Americaunas - they are black and golden, very prissy but kind and have the feathering of pictures of Americaunas, just not the coloring).


I have 8 chickens and get 4-5 eggs a day. I just hit 5 months and a week or 2 weeks since they were hatched.



ANOTHER QUESTION: When they are squawking furiously.... Is this usually right before, after, during, or a mixture of when they are actually laying?


Thanks!

 

[briggate]

I went to the local feed store and bought some plastic rings - then I patiently waited for a hen to come out of the nest box and caught her on the way out to the coop to put the ring around her leg. Be careful that you don't buy really small rings that might actually cut into their legs.

BTW I found that this is a 2-person job! Too hard to hold the chicken and try to roll the ring around their furiously pumping leg at the same time!

I have 10 new birds, and only 4 of them are laying right now, and we are at 23 weeks - so your numbers seem pretty good to me!