egg laying frequency & quantity

[zella chapman]

It seems like if I pick up the eggs every other day, they lay more eggs. If I collect them every day, there is only 4 eggs from 10 chickens. Every other day I collect a dozen.

What causes this? Is it psychological?

 

[aart]

Most chickens do not lay every single day, weeks on end.
Some will lay 6-7 a week, some will only lay 3-4 a week.....older birds(>3 years old) may only lay 1 a week.

If you collect every day for a few weeks you'll see that.......
.....if you can tell the eggs apart you will begin to see who lays everyday and who doesn't.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

If you believe this to be true and wish to have the best of both worlds, I would suggest investing in some nice "decoy eggs" that you can leave in the nests at all times (allowing you to gather daily but have the effect you perceive still there to influence the birds for you)- if your theory proves out you should see a consistent higher production rate that maintains over the long term. I suspect, though, that what you will see is that the fluctuations will still be there over the long term of the experiement.