First Egg Countdown

[maidenwolfx80]

No, they are large fowl.

She is my favorite colored bird. Ester is the EE that is laying right now. Sorry, I said she had a rose comb and I meant a pea comb. Her egg is the one on the far right. The ones on the left were double yolkers from my RIR, a large store bought egg, egg from my barred rock, and then the one from my EE. I guess it really doesn't look all that little compared to the white large store bought one.. It was just that the others where hugh! hahaha

Beautiful bird.!!! Mine are standards and 19 wks now I am so anxious lol. I go in there and give them extra treats and rock them and sill..... nothing lol! I guess I will have to be paitent.
The eggs look great, reall not small at all.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Happy Chooks, congratulations!! I have 5 Wellies from Cackle hatchery that are 23 weeks today. I don't think any of them will be ready by next week, their combs are all red but still pretty small. I'm thinking more like 3 more weeks, but I can't wait to get a terra cotta egg! What do yours look like?

I'll get a picture of them later today.

You can see my other hen's eggs here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/happy-chooks-welsummers

 

[rosebuds]

How old were your chicks started laying.Mine are 12 weeks old and i can not wait to see my first egg.

 

[7 Biddies]

How old were your chicks started laying.Mine are 12 weeks old and i can not wait to see my first egg.

Oh, you have a long way to go; they're still babies. My first was 22 - 23 weeks.

 

[rosebuds]

Well i will wait patiently until they do .I am thinking 2 more months.

 

[MissusC]

Do you free range your chicken? If you do, I would keep her in the coop for at least 24 hours maybe more to see if she is laying. Have you put "fake" eggs in her nest? Chickens will lay their eggs where others lay. It will show her where she is suppose to lay. If she has been squatting for more than 10 days, I would assume she is laying eggs somewhere.

They are in a run attached to the coop. There isn't anywhere she would be laying that I can't see. I have golf balls in the nest. I have noticed in the last couple days that her wattle/s are really shiny, where before they were only scarlet red. Chronologically, she is only 17 weeks old...could she just be an early bloomer without actually laying? Does that happen?

It has been really hot here though and we've been seeing lots of feathers...is this molting?

Thanks for all your help...I am such a n00b and my google-fu is failing me.

 

[Simmonsfunnyfrm]

Several of my Cinnamon Queens (a kind of red sex link) had huge and bright red combs and wattles for a month before I saw any eggs. Even now I just have one girl laying. They are 23.5 weeks old, she started one day shy of 23 weeks. The sex links generally mature earlier than that, so all my girls are late bloomers

. You probably still have a few weeks to go if you're not hearing any egg song or seeing any squatting. On the plus side though, the later a pullet starts to lay, the healthier it is for them, and she may have an extended laying career because of it. She's probably not completely molting, I think they tend to do that around 18 months for their first time, and once a year after that. Young birds can go through a juvenile molt though, which is not as dramatic. Mine went through it at about 10-16 weeks and there were feathers everywhere for a time. Hope you get your first egg soon!

 

[6littlechicks]

my wait is over! Today at 18 weeks 2 days I got my first egg!!! So happy. For those of you that want to know how do you know they are about to lay, I could tell something special was about to happen. When I woke up and looked out at 6:45 am she was pacing back and forth in the enclosed run so I let the other girls out and she didn't go out so I closed her in. Then she was making a very annoyed kind of screetchy bokking like egg song? Then she jumped in and out of all 3 nests over and over for about 15 minutes looking like she was going to explode and then she started jumping up on anything she could roost on and looked like she was climbing the walls! Then she went into the coop and didn't come out for a half hour and so I went to check on her and saw her in the nest box with her tail up in the corner and knew she had assumed the position. I left her alone and 20 minutes later she came out so I went to put her in the run and then checked the box and there it was! So, then she got some special treats

There's my story of egg-mas morning, lol.

Also, her comb and whole face was bright red like I've never seen before.

 

[Nikki99]

Ok everybody, two of my five finally started laying about a week ago but they refuse to lay IN the nesting boxes.

I've tried keeping them in the coop until after they've laid, they will just lay on the floor. I've tried putting golf balls and eggs in the boxes to show them that the boxes are for that kind of thing, nothin. I've tried setting them in the boxes over and over, nothin. I tried changing out the the "fluffy stuff" in the boxes, first I tried straw, then changed it out for shavings, still, nadda. They have found a spot up against a big tree that has a lot of brush around the bottom of it that they like. They dug out a little nest and that's where they have been laying any chance they get, otherwise, it's on the floor in the barn. I have three more girls that will begin to lay sometime soon and I'd really like it if my two rebellious, anti nest girls didn't teach them to lay anywhere other then the boxes!

What else can I try that I haven't already? I'm thinking maybe I should tear out all the brush at the base of the tree, maybe then they wont feel like it's a safe spot? I hate to do it because it does provide nice cover when needed.

 

[Nikki99]

Congrats!!! to all the first eggers!!! That's very exciting! I couldn't stop talking about it when we got our first egg for almost the whole day, thank goodness my DH is such a rock star!