No one told me...

[gtaus]

I put my nest boxes out in the coop around 18 weeks

Thanks. That is what I was planning to do at 18 weeks. So I guess I'll keep to the plan.

 

[so lucky]

I put hay in my nest boxes last week, with the girls being about 16 weeks old now. I put up a new curtain, to give them the privacy that chickens seem to want when they lay. (That's when I discovered the big wasp nests!) Like @michaelbell317 , I'm pretty sure there is at least a week, maybe 10 days difference in their ages.
As far as I can tell, they haven't shown interest in the boxes yet. No poop in them. Yay! In my previous flock, my old White Rock went from the highest in the pecking order to the lowest, over time. She took to sleeping a nest box every night, to avoid the others, I suppose. Lots of poop involved.

 

[ironsightfarm]

Their nesting boxes are inside the coop. The box’s access was blocked off until they got closer to laying age. Even after I opened the boxes up, they didn’t go inside them until they started laying. A couple of weeks after I opened them, we put one decoy egg in each box. It’s funny now. If I remove the decoy from the preferred box and put it into one of the other boxes, I have three, they’ll use the other box. They prefer the center box, but they more prefer a box with a decoy egg.

They certainly are finicky, particular little creatures

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I also put golf balls in the nests at about 18 weeks. Mostly they are using the nests, but occasionally there will be an "oops!" on the coop floor, and one Somebody is nesting in a corner on the floor. Not sure how to fix that.

 

[Aunt Angus]

Even after having chickens for years, every egg is a gift, and it kinda feels like your birthday when you gather them.

Eggactly how I feel!!!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

It's kinda a miracle when you think about it. I mean a human egg is only as big as the period at the end of this sentence. A bird egg is ginormous compared to its body size! Even a whale egg is minute in comparison. And chickens give us their eggs so OFTEN! What's not to treasure?

 

[Willowspirit]

Treasure is the real word for it too!

 

[Sam307]

Congratulations! I have 6 pullets, one of my WRs gives me about 5 eggs a week and started 3 weeks before the others. 2 others have started laying but they are not regular and I think have maybe layed 2 eggs all together in 1.5 weeks. It's so exciting it's hard to stay patient! I just want them all to lay!

 

[dnhdaddy]

I'm excited about the first eggs to come, hopefully in the next few weeks, but I think I am more excited to see my sons face when he finally gets to find one! He has been raising them himself for the most part. I told him he needed to learn it if he wanted to do 4H with them. He hasn't backed down yet!

 

[analyticalblonde]

View attachment 1880265
Each chicken has a color in the six columns on the right side of the spreadsheet. Those colors are mimicked on the graph showing who is laying the most. The first couple of weeks was pretty boring when only one chicken was laying. Now, with just two more chickens yet to join the game, the first layer’s segment is getting a little smaller.

Wow...you put my moniker to shame!!!! Fantastic