Thank you Buck for your reply.
My Welsummer is the same age as the other two bigger birds - 28 - 29 weeks old. When I purchased them as pullets, about 12 weeks before POL, they were all roughly the same size. As they have grown, the Welsummer has grown very large, while the other two are about the right size for their breed. My Welsummer is a lot larger than my laying RIR. I mentioned she had not grown her comb at all, however today - 3 days after my original post, I notice her comb has suddenly become a little thicker and taller - only a little, but enough to be noticeable. So here's hoping she is on her way to doing something. They don't have a large run, so if she were laying - I would notice ... she's definitely not laying either inside or outside the coop.
Ref. egg eating. I am currently not able to get out in my car, having badly torn ligaments in my right foot, so am at home all the time, and listen for the noises that accompany laying - and then go and retrieve the eggs immediately. However, I have gone out there after waking up at around 9 am, and found a couple of eggs already laid, cold, whole and untouched, many times. The 3 eggs eaten have been over 6+ weeks, and I am hoping I can avoid that as much as possible. As for who is doing the eating - it's ??? The eggs eaten or broken have been only the Barnevelder eggs - never the RIR's eggs.
Had never heard of pinless peepers, so looked them up. If the problem becomes a daily or even weekly event, I will try to get some peepers to put on all of the big girls. I also wonder if the eggs laid that were eaten, were trodden on or broken when kicked out of the nest, and THEN eaten as there was only a small amount of very mashed up shell remaining. I have two dummy eggs in the coop, and when putting the chooks ( Aussie's call chickens 'chooks' ) .... to bed, I will place the dummy eggs in one spot. By morning I find them all over the place, and never where I left them the night before. I think they play football with them !! I originally put them in there to a) encourage laying, and b) to ' teach' the chooks that they cannot be eaten !! - well that was my newbie theory anyway. Pecking at the dummy eggs would be a most frustrating task !!!
Again thanks for your interest and reply.
Cheers
Anniebee.