How many eggs? Not sure if my hens are laying a good amount????

[pouletdile]

So my 20 hens started laying back on Oct. 15th. I'm now up to 181 eggs total since then. Is that a good amount? I think that comes out to about 5.3 per day average. First time with chix so not sure but it seems good to me.

 

[MakNugget]

Well it depends on how you're counting. If I count mine from when the first one laid I would only be getting about 2.19 eggs per day (125 @ 57 days) My second chicken started laying a week later, and the third didn't lay for more than 4 weeks after! It would be higher if I measured since they all started laying. Using my last 7 day average, it's 2.57 per day (18 eggs) which is much better. So if I put my math hat on...

2.57 per day
---------------- = 85.67% daily production rate
3 chickens


you've got:

181 eggs / 33 days production = 5.48 eggs per day

5.48 per day
-------------- = 27.40% daily production rate, which seems really low.
20 chickens


Doing some voo doo rubber chicken math I would say you've got 7-10 chickens that are actively laying, which I'm assuming you have normal layers. If you have EE's in the mix you've got more waiting to do I'm afraid. My late bloomer black australorp didn't start laying until over 30 days after my first. They seem to vary in maturity times much like human teenagers in my opinion, only for them it seems weeks compared to years.

If you apply my 85% to your 20 chickens, it comes up to about 17 eggs per day, so I think you still have more to look forward to

 

[woodmort]

Different breeds tend to lay at different rates and even pullets of the same breed and age tend to come on line at a different rate. Right now I have 35 birds that should be laying and I'm getting 28-33 eggs a day depending on if that is the day the two SS lay. Ideally you'd like to think first year layers would give you an egg a day but realistically 4 - 5 eggs a week is a better average. BTW my Black Stars started laying about midOctober but it has only been the last week or so that all 26 have produced an egg so, depending on breed, yours may catch up too.

 

[SycolinWoodsChickens]

We also have 20 hens who are about 31 weeks old now. We are getting between 13-15 eggs per day. It started out a lot slower then since about November 1st we've been getting a consistent number of eggs.

Are you supplementing with light? We are providing 14 hours of light per day for our girls.

 

[pouletdile]

I'm counting since the first egg. Wow, I thought that what I was getting was pretty good. We'll be in egg overload once they all start!

 

[pouletdile]

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Yes, I have my light on a timer so that they are getting 14 hrs.

 

[pouletdile]

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I know that I'm not getting an egg per day because we have 1 Maran and my son has 2 Polish, which are the only white egg producing ones we have, and I've been noting that we get those two types of eggs about every other day.