What time of day do chickens lay eggs?

[chickadee007]

My creamlegbar just played her first eggs in the past few days. I checked yesterday late afternoon (I have been getting one every other day) and there was no egg. I just checked at 10am this morning and there is an egg that was cracked and slightly frozen (it was in the 40's yesterday and 17F last night. Is she laying just after she goes in the coop at 6pm? I don't think it had time to freeze and crack this morning unless she's laying in the middle of the night?

 

[XxMingirlxX]

Most hens lay in the morning but they can lay at any time of day however it is unlikely they will lay during the night.

 

[Ridgerunner]

A hen has certain triggers that cause her to release a yolk to start the egg through the hen’s internal egg making factory. That journey is somewhere around 25 hours but that can vary some. One of those triggers is daylight. If it is getting too close to sunset that trigger should stop her from starting an egg that has to be laid at night.

But you don’t have a hen, you have a pullet just starting to lay. While most pullets get it right from the start, the hen’s internal egg making factory is fairly complicated. It’s not that unusual for a pullet to have to debug her system. One of those kinks might be when she starts an egg. Often they will lay those eggs from the roost. At least yours made it to a nest. It’s also not unusual to see thin-shelled or no-shelled eggs, eggs with extremely thick shells, double yolkers, no yolkers, no whites, or just plain weird eggs. What’s remarkable to me is that so many actually get it right to start with.

Just be patient. She should get her system debugged pretty soon.