Got first egg

[dandread]

we Got our first egg from our red sex link chickens. It was not very big. A little smaller than our two fake eggs.

A couple days ago my wife found one of the fake eggs in the coop run. She was all excited. Well I got the real thing.

 

[dandread]

I was told that I should probably put a lamp on for a couple hours to give chickens more daylight to encourage laying.

Is it better to add two hours in evening or early morning? Does it matter.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Congrats, and here to many more to come.
One thought as I look art humour photo is that there is not much cushion between a dropping egg and the wood of that nest shown. Eggs can be cracked or broken falling from event to exposed hard surfaces....I would suggest using nest pads or more nesting materiel.

 

[N F C]

Congrats on your 1st egg!

And ditto on adding more nesting material. You sure wouldn't want to lose any of those precious eggs that way.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

I was told that I should probably put a lamp on for a couple hours to give chickens more daylight to encourage laying.

Is it better to add two hours in evening or early morning? Does it matter.

New layers are not so much light dependent.....generally additional light is beneficial to encourage laying through winter or to stimulate older birds to resume laying earlier in the year than natural light cycle can support. Supplememtal lighting is best added to the beginning of the day so that the birds experience natural dusk

 

[dandread]

I actually had the nests filled with tons of wood shavings and they scooped most of it out.

What time of day do they normally lay.

How can we know which one layer the egg. One of the hens is the noisiest. My wife thinks it is the heroine of the day.

 

[CCUK]

Great news for your first egg! I am always happy when I collect eggs! Try putting a board a 4-5" high in front of the box. That should stop them raking the nesting material out.

 

[CCUK]

I actually had the nests filled with tons of wood shavings and they scooped most of it out.

What time of day do they normally lay.

How can we know which one layer the egg. One of the hens is the noisiest. My wife thinks it is the heroine of the day.

That will probably be the egg song! Sometimes the hens have to announce it to the world that they have layed! It's great when they all join in!

 

[AllenK RGV]

I was told that I should probably put a lamp on for a couple hours to give chickens more daylight to encourage laying.

Is it better to add two hours in evening or early morning? Does it matter.

I'd say it only matters if you have a rooster too and when you want him crowing.

edit follow on question: Do you offer Oyster shell yet or are you feeding a Layer feed? Tell us more about your flock, as there might be some management practices that need tweaking now you are getting layers.

 

[dandread]

No roosters, NO CROWING!!!!!
I am using Calcium Carbonate grit and layer feed. I also provide the hens granite grit in their small coop run.

The hens (3) free grange for about one hour day. Our soil has a variety of types of soil, grass, and soon they should start finding some bugs.

Each day we provide them with a small amount of food scraps in their coop run. It is how I have trained them (bribed them) to come back to the coop after free range.

BTW we live in Seattle. We suddenly got a old spell (down to 29 degrees), thought there was no way they would start laying.