Late night egg...maybe

[underground chickenman]

One of my hens is the box right now grunting out her first egg after 9:00 at night in total darkness. She has been in and out of the three boxes all afternoon, fussing with each one. She finally formed a nice bowl in one, but seems to be serious right now about a different one. What is funny is normally all the girls are on the roost well before now, but they are all on the perch outside the box like a bunch of midwives...ahem, egging her on. Wish I could take a pic without disturbing them.

UGCM

 

[cmom]

I have had a rare late egg around 8pm. Once I got an extra egg. I had 16 chickens at that time, when I went out to collect the eggs there were 17 eggs. That might have been the 8pm egg.

 

[underground chickenman]

False alarm. I think she is ready to lay anytime, but it looks like all the chooks were roosting on the perch outside the boxes. She was only half way in. Maybe she started there, but it got too late to lay and they all just roosted there. Either that, or they all got scared off the roost (it has been lightning and thundering) and relocated closer to the floor. I just moved them all back to their regular roost for the night. Don't want them to develop new roosting habits.

 

[gritsar]

She's probably getting close and practicing. I occasionally have a hen go to the nestbox late, usually as they are going in for the night. I just leave her and find a nice egg in the morning.