Nest Boxes in Chicken Tractor?

[RojoMarz]

I’ve read that hens are on a 25 hour cycle. In other words, if a hen lays an egg at 8:00AM today, it will lay at 9:00AM the next and so on.

Can anyone confirm or reject this?

I'd say somewhat true. But, mine lay when they are 'ready'. I have 5 pullets. Some days, I pick up 3 eggs before lunch, and 2 after. Other days, I pick up 1 before lunch, 3 after. And still other days, I get 4 after lunch. I get between 3 and 5 eggs a day. 5 on most days though. Other words, I would not set a clock by when they lay.

Our tractor has a nest box.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’ve read that hens are on a 25 hour cycle. In other words, if a hen lays an egg at 8:00AM today, it will lay at 9:00AM the next and so on.

Can anyone confirm or reject this?

It takes about, approximately, somewhere near 25 hours for an egg to go through the hens internal egg making factory. Some are faster, some are slower.

There are different triggers that tell a hen to release the yolk to start that process. Laying an egg is one of them. Supposedly a yolk should be released about 20 minutes after an egg is laid. Daylight is another. I'm sure there are more. These triggers are designed so the egg is laid during daylight hours, not at night while the hen is on the roost. These different triggers affect different hens different ways. For example, not every hen lays eggs on consecutive days so the lay-an-egg trigger doesn't work on them.

These are theoretical reasons why the 25 hours may not be exact. My experience says it is not true each and every time. Many do lay on a 25 hour cycle. But years ago I had only one green egg layer. She would lay an egg every day for 6 or 7 days and then skip a day. Every day that she laid an egg it was laid before 9:00 in the morning. If that egg was not laid by 9:00 she would not lay that day. With her being the only green egg layer it was pretty obvious.

 

[NatJ]

I’ve read that hens are on a 25 hour cycle. In other words, if a hen lays an egg at 8:00AM today, it will lay at 9:00AM the next and so on.

Can anyone confirm or reject this?

I think how many hours depends on the hen.
When I have hens that lay different color eggs (so I can tell them apart), each hen lays progressively later until she skips a day and starts again early the next morning.
But some hens skip every 4th or 5th day, while some other hens go multiple weeks before they skip a day. (And plenty in between those extremes.)

If I try googling, I find various sites saying 25 hours, 24-26 hours, 25-27 hours, 28 hours...

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-06-15-8502080029-story.html
"hen laid an egg a day for 448 successive days." (The hen got in the Guiness Book of World Records.) So that hen must have been laying on a cycle really close to 24 hours, to go that many days without missing one.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The idea is to have them in the tractor during the day. They have a hen house with nesting box to sleep in at night.

I don't have any great ideas on how you will manage that. I'd build a nest or two in the tractor, either as part of the tractor or that can be moved with it. But not sure how that will work for you unless you move them really early every day. Sounds like a pain.