Do chickens ever lay two eggs per day?

[Forrest_Flock]

I have heard from a mate that it happens
but I have a feeling he is exaggerating

Does it happen?

 

[pgpoultry]

Short answer is yes, but infrequently and usually young hens.

 

[patrickfoy1]

I have a chicken laying two eggs at a sitting.... she is the first out of five chickens to lay and so far we have 8 eggs in four days.
I have been monitoring her and she is the only layer so far..... so it is true it can happen...

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

It's extraordinarily rare, but yes, it can occasionally happen.

I have a bantam Cochin hen that's done it several times.

 

[Saltysteele]

my dad has one that will lay 2 a day. i didn't think it was possible, but unless we have feral chickens running around in this neck of the woods, it's the only possibility.

 

[Nonny]

Quote:
Yep - that about sums it up. One of our Black Australorp hybrids laid two on her first day. My theory is that the first egg got held up in the exit chute while the second one was in production, so although they were made a day apart, they were laid one after the other on the same morning.

I've also heard that some hens have an egg cycle slightly less than 24 hours, so every so often the timing means that you will get two eggs on the same day.

 

[cmom]

I have had that happen a few times over the years. One egg will get layed early in the morning and a second later that day. Maybe instead of producing a double yolk egg they produce two separate eggs???

 

[spotstealer]

My girls started layging about two weeks or so ago, Last week One of them laid two. I have six girls. I picked four eggs in the morning and my picked three more in the evening. They've been producing and average of four/five a day other than the day following the seven. I only had three that day.

 

[cmom]

Quote:
Double-yolk eggs occur when ovulation occurs too rapidly, or when one yolk becomes joined with another yolk. These eggs may be the result of a young hen's productive cycle not yet being synchronized or ovulation is triggered by the hen laying the egg and two yolks are released at the same time to travel down the oviduct together, being surrounded by one shell and giving us the double yolker. They're occasionally laid by a heavy-breed hen, often as an inherited trait.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
I've read a number of studies on egg production times. The higher performance hens will have an egg cycle just over 24 hours and lay a large number of eggs per clutch before taking a break. There are some that will lay in a cycle that is less than 24 hours but they don't sustain it for very long and will take a break of a day or two quite frequently, leading to overall reduced egg production. Such high performance is the result of selective breeding, but as the saying goes "You can't fool Mother Nature."