Before you know it you will have eggs coming out the wazoo.
My very first egg was at 19 weeks. And had 3 of 7 laying at 21 weeks. I think 2 more where about by 23 weeks and the last two at about 25 weeks.
I wonder if it has anything to do with diet?
I feed my chicks the chick mash feed for about 4 weeks and then I was like "screw it this is going to get too expensive". So soon after that I got one of the big bags of the 16% protein pellets. And what I did is at about 4-5 weeks I gave them a mix of the chick mash and pellets. 4-1 then the next feeder fill it was 3-1 then 2-1 then 1-1 then 1-2, 1-3, 1-4 then all pellets. All of them have been super healthy so I think what I did was ok?
Plus another thing I did at soon at the first one laid I put a small low watt bulb in the coop on a timer. It came on at about 7 and and off at 10 am then back on at 5 pm and off at 9 pm.
So to sum it up in short you must be very close? If they roam around the yard I would be checking around under bushes and what not. Because at first they might not really get the nesting boxes?
Oh also at 15 weeks I found some rock carved at a garage sale for $1 each so I put one in each nesting box.
xoxo
