What chicken lays what

[tbone3636]

Was wondering if yall could help me with what type of chicken lays what color of egg, these are the main 3 "brown" color of eggs I get. I have red sexlinks, black sexlinks, black australop, jersey giant, dominecker and a wellsummer. I know not all are laying I'm only getting 2-3 eggs a day out of 11 birds and one is my leghorn almost everyday which is white. The most I've gotten in a day is 7 but that's been a couple weeks ago. Thanks for any info

 

[sunflour]

The Welsummer should lay chocolate, deep brown eggs. I think all the others you have lay light to med brown eggs.

I don't think you can guess who laid what. I have only BO and BR and knew exactly who laid what when they first started laying, but now at 2 yo it is difficult on many for me to be certain which breed laid some eggs. The intensity of the pigment, the amount of bloom and speckles changes. Everytime I think I am certain who laid a particular egg, the hens prove me incorrect. One of my brown egg layers laid an almost white egg recently and really had me confused. I think she did it on purpose

Maybe somebody else will notice the thread and a knack for guessing which laid what.

 

[FishChicken]

tbone3636,

I've been working on this very same problem, though your task is a bit more daunting. I have only 6 laying birds and two birds that should be mature enough to lay towards the end of summer. Egg to bird indentification may be done if one can track individual chickens and then match them to a known egg type. This could be estimated in a statistical sense to see how well one can classify an egg to a bird (see discriminate function analysis). However, I'm pretty certain that the variation among eggs for an individual bird is just as large as the variation among eggs for all birds - so my hope for this is limited.

Another way I thought of was to use a motion activated go-pro or gamewatch camera so that I could monitor snap shots of which birds enter the egg boxes on a daily basis...

As far as factors that affect egg laying check out my earlier post that quantifies how day length (day light), temperature, and bird age affect the probability of egg laying - its my post on climate change and egg laying.

I'll let you know how well my egg identification goes, though its labor intesive and preliminary data suggests its not going to work. The motion sensitive camera to identify individual birds may be the best option...

Cheers,
Fish Chicken

 

[123RedBeard]

Check their vents ... See who is NOT laying ... Then it's is a more calculated guess

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/597295/vent-of-hen-that-is-laying-vs-non-laying

 

[tbone3636]

Good idea so from the thread you posted if it's moist they are laying and dry they are not? Also if a hen has laid before but is not laying now will the bones still be open or will the close up? Thanks

 

[tbone3636]

I used a game camera in the coop but can't seem to catch the right angle

 

[123RedBeard]

If they stop laying they should dry up and the bone to vent distance should get smaller

 

[FishChicken]

123RedBeard, Will the vent indentification for active layers work on a daily basis, or only when the bird plans to shut down for an extended period?
Thanks