Middle of the night egg laying?

[jomoncon]

About 1 am this morning, I was laying in bed reading (one of my insomnia nights) when I heard what sounded like an egg song coming from the chicken coop. Since I've been having opposom problems, I grabbed a flashlight to go outside to check on the girls. All 7 of my RIRs were on the roost and when I turned the flashlight on them they all jumped down to the poop board to eat a soft-shell egg. Evidently one of them had laid an egg in the middle of the night!! In addition, I saw another, hard-shelled egg on the poop board that definitely was not there 2 days ago.

I had no idea no idea that an egg would be laid in the dark. I keep one small night light on all night but there's no other light for them at 1 am. Since it was a cool night I had the window open and could hear the egg song. Our weather has been very warm lately so usually the window is closed with the AC on. Maybe they've laid an egg in the middle of the night before and I just didn't hear the song.

Has anyone else ever gotten an egg laid in the middle of the night?

 

[Wishing4Wings]

Ha! I see you are having another late night! I've never had an egg laid in the middle of the night, but one did lay after dark last night. I got home late and went to lock the coop and counted heads by flashlight. One girl was missing, but found her standing in the nest box, with two eggs (not hers) under her. She just kept standing there while I was trying to decide if something was wrong and then an egg plopped out!

Are your RIRs young? When my pullets were just starting to lay, I did find that a couple of eggs under the roosts in the morning, but after a week or two, all eggs have been in the nest boxes.

Nighty-night!