Mine lay in the morning. I go out at 7ish & find a duck egg and 1-2 chicken eggs. Go out again around noon & have a couple more. I think they sleep all night.
Chickens don't lay eggs at night, not normally. Early AM seems to be the most common time. IIRC it takes 26 hours to form an egg---not sure if that's correct so don't quote me. So, they usually lay a little later each day until they take a day off, then start in the morning again.
I have an RSL that lays about 04:00 (from the roost). She did this previously and I thought I had broken her from it... but now she's at it again. My other RSL lays about 08:00 every day (in the nest box)... both of these hens have laid an egg a day since they began laying in and have not taken a day off (14 eggs a week from the two) even after the days got shorter and much colder. My other hens all lay between 08:00-10:00.
Thank ya'll. we just had our first egg this morning. So i didn't know what time they lay. I was surprised at where it was because I had never seen any of the hens in that area of the coop. And of course it was not in the nesting box