Less than 26 hour cycle?

[Uzuri]

I've read that a chicken's egg cycle is usually about 26 hours (on average, of course).

I'm scratching my head here, though, because I had two late eggs yesterday (for a total of 5/6). Later than 3:30 anyway, because I left home after checking on them at that time and got back out to check them again at about 7:00 interrupting one hen as she rested after laying (warm egg!).

But today it's 3:30 again (OK, so far as the chickens are concerned it's 2:30) and I've had a total of 5 eggs out of 6 hens again! At least one of those late layers had to have gone short-cycle on me. Giving her the longest period she could have had, assuming she laid right after I walked out the door yesterday and right before I got out there today (very possible, there was a hell of a racket when I opened the garage door) and taking into account the time change, she would have cycled at 23 hours. Just comparing the actual eggs, though, I actually suspect that it was the hen that I chased out of the nest last night at 7:00. That would have been more like a 19.5 hours cycle.

Now, obviously I know this is possible since it happened

but what I'm curious about is whether this is a function of the spring weather. Does laying pick up in the spring and summer because the cycle shortens? I was under the impression that the cycle was the cycle, but now I'm not so sure. I've heard the number trotted out so often as an average, but without having actually read the research I don't know if that "average" is an average of all chickens tested or an average of one chicken's cycles over the period of a year.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The average time for an egg to make its journey through the hen's internal egg laying factory is 25 hours from start to when it is laid. Most hens seem to wait until the egg is laid to start the next one. Most, not all. Some start the next egg before the last egg is laid. If two eggs are laid too close together, the second one often does not have a good shell. Her factory did not have time to prepare the material for the next egg shell.

Sometimes a hen will hold off on laying an egg. The nest box she wants to use may have another chicken in it. Something may scare her off the nest before she can finish laying it so she waits until later. The cycle for the next egg may start when she should have laid the egg, not necessarily when she actually laid it.

I don't know what is going on with your hen. I just know they are living things and every time you think you have figured out something, they prove you wrong.

 

[teach1rusl]

My hens lay pretty much at the same time daily, and then take a day off after 5 or 6 days. The exception is my EE, who is an early evening layer. She'll lay about the same time for two days, then take a day off. So I think they're all different in their cycles. I've even had a soft shelled egg "layed" on the dropping board either over night or in the early morning hours, and still had them all lay that day (with good shells)????