time of day for eggs

[gritsar]

Quote:
I agree with this. I've read where people say that their hens lay at the same time each day, but that's not been my experience. Yesterday my younger hens all laid between 9 and 11 am, today it was closer to 1 PM before they were all finished. My adult girls all laid late yesterday evening and all but one took today off.

 

[AinaWGSD]

My girls lay all day long, although I seem to get the majority of my eggs between 9am and 1pm most days. Yesterday I crawled out of bed to let the girls out when I heard a ruckus coming from the coop, figuring that they were complaining about me sleeping in and them being shut in still at 6:30am. Nope, turned out it was Buffy my EE singing her egg song! I found a fresh warm egg. Many days I'll find an egg on the floor of the coop from my EE Merna when I go out at 5:40-6am laid from the roost (she's "special" in the egg laying department, I've only gotten an egg from her a few times in the nest). And the other day I found the last egg at about 6pm from my SLW Gertrude.

 

[Luke13:34]

I always have what I'm gonna get by 3pm each day. Convenient for me.. I can get home from work, pick the kids up from school, gather my eggs, and be in for the night if I want.

 

[dirtgirl49]

My girls (5 silkies) are very erratic with their egg laying. Some days there can be an egg in the nest at 6.30a.m when they are let out and other days they can lay as late as 7.30 at night.(as one of them did tonight) Mind you Silkies are renowned for their bizarre egg laying behaviour, some days there could be 3 eggs all laid one on top of the other, other days nothing. They usually lay in the nest but have been known to just drop them under the Crepe Myrtle tree where there is a pile of straw.
I am wondering where my 4 new girls - Bantams ( joined us today) will decide to lay their eggs??

 

[briteday]

I've had all types of heritage, standard, banties as well as commercially developed sexlinks (ISA's). The standard hatchery, barnyard flocks of mine tend to lay at all times of the day, sometimes I would find one as late as 4PM. However, since switching to the commercial sexlinks, they pretty much are finished laying by 9-10AM. I suspect that part of the breeding selection processin these patented commercial strains is to shorten the ovulation time to closer to every 24 hours so that the eggs are produced on a more predictable schedule and higher production rate for the commercial egg industry. And in the home flock, which tends to have more birds >1 year of age, as a hen matures the time between ovulation increases(sometimes >26 hours) based on the necessary production of progesterone to encourage ovulation. In chickens there are many factors that play into ovulation...light, diet, age, hormones. However, a general rule of thumb is that the hen will ovulate when the currently developed egg moves past the shell gland and into the vagina. This positioning of the egg for laying increase certain chemicals in the hen signaling that it's time to ovulate and form the next egg.

 

[Judy]

I've read that they won't lay after about 3 PM. Like most such flat-out statements, it's not always true. Like many others, I've checked at 4 or 5 PM then found an egg later than that.

But as a general rule, I've found it to be true.

Same for laying at night. Generally, they do not.

 

[Coopa Cabana]

I think a lot of them have their own internal clocks, just like we do. I have roos that start crowing at different times of the morning. And keep in mind that they really don't keep time the same way we do - their clocks rely more on sunup/sundown time. The hours from sunup to 7 a.m. differ from season to season. Which can mean that at some times of the year, they may finish laying at 5 p.m. rather than 3 p.m.

If you want more predictable laying times, you may need to provide artificial lighting that coincides more with our sense of time.

 

[dewey]

Generally it'd be in the morning, and by noon for most others, yet I've had them not uncommonly after 4pm. The ones that would usually lay late in day but had skipped a day laying, would usually lay their next egg early in the day. I wonder if anyone else has noticed a connection between when they skip a day and then them laying at a different time than they usually do.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
I agree with this. I've read where people say that their hens lay at the same time each day, but that's not been my experience. Yesterday my younger hens all laid between 9 and 11 am, today it was closer to 1 PM before they were all finished. My adult girls all laid late yesterday evening and all but one took today off.

Well, just as I predicted my older girls took yesterday off and all headed to the nestboxes first thing this morning.

 

[dewey]

Quote:
I agree with this. I've read where people say that their hens lay at the same time each day, but that's not been my experience. Yesterday my younger hens all laid between 9 and 11 am, today it was closer to 1 PM before they were all finished. My adult girls all laid late yesterday evening and all but one took today off.

Well, just as I predicted my older girls took yesterday off and all headed to the nestboxes first thing this morning.

Well this explains a lot, lol...I missed those posts...