Late in the day egg laying…

[RockNRollCHIX]

I have 6 pullets all 30 weeks old. 4 of them are laying, and they started at 20, 22, 25 & 26 weeks old. Still waiting on our Easter Egger and buff Orpington.
They used to get their business done by 11am at the latest, but usually by 9:30-10am.
Now I have a couple of them laying LATE in the day. It’s 2:45p and the Australorp just went into the nest box.
They act totally normal, I’m assuming it due to cooler temps and the end of daylight savings? This is our first flock.

 

[Crazy Chicken Keeper]

I have 6 pullets all 30 weeks old. 4 of them are laying, and they started at 20, 22, 25 & 26 weeks old. Still waiting on our Easter Egger and buff Orpington.
They used to get their business done by 11am at the latest, but usually by 9:30-10am.
Now I have a couple of them laying LATE in the day. It’s 2:45p and the Australorp just went into the nest box.
They act totally normal, I’m assuming it due to cooler temps and the end of daylight savings? This is our first flock.

A lot of my hens lay late afternoon. Like, my two orpingtons, 19 months and 2.2 years. Usually at 2-3

 

[kattabelly]

They generally tend to run on slightly longer than 24-hour cycle (I can't remember the exact number), so they'll gradually start to lay later in the day until at some point they skip a day and then lay early the next morning. I just had one laying after sunset at the start of this week and now she's laying first thing in the morning again.

Plus new layers are often less regular or predictable for a while.

 

[RockNRollCHIX]

They generally tend to run on slightly longer than 24-hour cycle (I can't remember the exact number), so they'll gradually start to lay later in the day until at some point they skip a day and then lay early the next morning. I just had one laying after sunset at the start of this week and now she's laying first thing in the morning again.

Plus new layers are often less regular or predictable for a while.

Yessssss, exactly this… there have been skipped days recently! Thanks for the info!

 

[Ridgerunner]

They act totally normal, I’m assuming it due to cooler temps and the end of daylight savings?

There are different triggers that tell a hen when to release the yolk and start the internal egg making process. One of those triggers is daylight. This helps time it so the egg is laid after daylight but before dark. Another trigger is when they release the previous egg, the yolk for the next egg is released about 20 minutes later. Some hens lay an egg practically every a day while others only lay 2 to 4 eggs a week. If they are on the 2 to 4 eggs a week schedule then laying the egg is not a trigger to releaser the yolk for the next egg. There are other triggers (life is never that simple) but these are the two main ones for this discussion.

On average it takes about 25 hours for an egg to go through the hen's internal egg making factory. That's on average, some are faster and some are slower. So if you have a hen that is trying to lay every day and is on a slower schedule than 24 hours the egg should come later each day. When it gets too late to be laid before dark the hen skips a day and generally starts laying first thing in the morning to start the next cycle.

This is a general sort of average schedule. Not all hens follow that rigorously. I had a hen (my only green egg layer so I knew which one was laying it) that laid every morning at 9:00 AM. If I did not see her egg by 9:00 she was not laying that day. She laid 5 to 6 eggs a week. I've had hens that were an hour or two later each day until they skipped a day. If a hen is laying an egg every other day then she normally lays fairly early.

Most eggs are laid fairly early in the morning because many hens are not on the "later each day" or every day schedule. But it is certainly not unusual for some eggs to be laid fairly late. Your flock sounds perfectly normal. And congratulations on getting the eggs!