I'm new to chickens too but I've become a BYC addict so I do think I can answer a couple of your questions. I have Buff Orpingtons too, they are almost a year old now. They are my favorite of my three breeds (also have orloffs and RIR).
Young chickens lay alot more eggs than older chickens. They kinda have a certain number of eggs they are able to produce in their lifetime and production factory starts off real well and peters out over time. So those production numbers are probably averaged over a Buff Orpington's lifetime.
My girls are all doing real well now that we put the light on for them and all three breeds will occasionally have a day everyone lays at least one, or twice we had one bird lay two.
But usually that will follow with the next day their being a few birds that do not lay. By lighting their coop, we are kind of encouraging them to lay more of their eggs in their lifetime earlier.
Our BO eggs are very nice. Our girls all started at different times (we have eight BO). Our BO roo became interested in all of them at the same time that they began laying, but one or two of them were much later in getting started. The one that started last at first did not like the eggs and pecked them. But we put golf balls in there and successfully retrained her to not peck at eggs anymore. She also started laying them herself so that is part of what solved the problem. So I wouldn't leave the egg of the one laying already in the nest too long. Your non laying BO might not understand what it is like mine did. We thought we were going to have to eat her...she escaped with her head at the last possible moment by ceasing and desisting her egg-pecking habit.
My chickens also seem to lay real well (as a group) after a day I've given an especially satisfying treat. Mine love those Flock blocks, that is the kind of thing I mean.
