Egg collection

[City Farmer Jim]

When/what time do most of you collect your eggs ? Morning, mid day or evening. Does it matter or is one time better than another ?

 

[MarkJr]

When I’m working they get collected when I get home as I do my daily chores.

Been home for a bit.... I collect at 1030, 1 and right before closing time.

 

[Gallinarium]

Chickens generally lay in the morning, so I generally gather eggs before lunch. I check again the evening. During the hottest part of summer and in the winter, I generally check at 9, 1, and 8 to protect the eggs from temperature extremes. You need to gather at least once a day, if you do it before evening twice is better, a lot of my chickens don't read the rule book and lay at any time during the day. Other than that, it doesn't really matter.

 

[Backyard Hencam]

I collect eggs in the late afternoon when I let the hens out of their run for an hour or two. I tell them that free-ranging is their reward for giving me an egg.! It seems to work.

 

[Mamatomany123]

I go out around 12-1. By then all of the eggs are laid.

 

[Sally PB]

Since my girls are still new at this, I check several times a day. Ok, who am I kidding!? I am still so excited about getting eggs that I check several times a day.

I try to keep track of who laid when, then start looking to see if anyone is sitting on the nest about an hour after that. They will come to the door to the run to meet me, and I don't like to interrupt any important business, so I count beaks to see if anyone is inside the coop. Today's eggs were laid around 11 am and 1:30 pm.

I got my biggest egg yet today. At 41 grams, it's not quite "small." So I'm calling it "Jumbo Peewee" sized.

 

[3KillerBs]

When/what time do most of you collect your eggs ? Morning, mid day or evening.

Yes.

When I had the in-town chickens I checked the nest boxes at any time that was convenient, often several times a day.

With externally-mounted nest boxes it's particularly important to check them multiple times per day during either severe heat or severe cold.

 

[NickyPick]

Hens lay all day long, depending on their schedule (26 hours per egg, 30 hours per egg, etc...) I gather at 10, 3 and 7 pm, mostly because I don't want the snakes to get comfortable with accessing the nest boxes, (but I do want them to hang around for the rats/mice in the feed room). Some days we will get 3 eggs at 10 am and 38 eggs by 7 pm, other days, its 30 eggs by 10 am and 32 by 7 pm. All hens have their own internal schedule for eggs.

 

[aart]

I usually collect when I do my midafternoon pastroll and again when I lock up at night.
Collect more frequently if there's a reason, like a softie layer or new pullets coming online.

 

[Callender Girl]

As I am retired, checking for eggs is almost a full-time job. Since my girls don't understand the one-hen-to-a-nest-box rule, I like to gather eggs BEFORE someone pushes out the previous girl's egg or three of them crowd together and crack the eggs

Plus, my girls free range, so I like to go out every hour or so to do a beak count so I might as well check for eggs while I'm out.