What time of day do your hens lay?

[DurangoCal]

I was curious to see what time of day your hens lay. Our hens from the past tended to lay in the morning. This new set of pullets have been laying for about 2 weeks now and we don't find any eggs before 11 am. And get some as late as 5pm!

 

[Sama_Lama]

All mine lay between 11 and 5pm. They must take turns though because They all lay in the same darn box. I'm so glad I made sure to make 6 for them...

 

[chicknduck]

Mine lay between 8 am and 1 pm.

 

[DurangoCal]

Quote:
We have 8 boxes and 25 hens. Only 5 are laying so far and three of them like to lay in the same box. The other two like theirs alone! We shall see what transpires when the rest come into lay! Our previous bunch of gals, there were 8 of 'em, all laid in the same box for a year. They had two to pick from and they avoided the one like the plague!

I am afraid I may have an egg eater in the bunch since I have only 5 laying out of the 25 for two weeks now so I've been going out every hour. So far, I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary except for the one day I saw yolk on a pullet's leg. But it may be that she laid an egg without a shell. I've also put dummy eggs in all the boxes in case she was eating them she would get discouraged pecking at the ones that are fake! (Read that somewhere on BYC.)

 

[Cowgirl71]

Quote:
I once had a hen who ate her eggs. She layed EXTREMELY soft-shelled eggs, the kind that would crumple in your hand if you didn't focus on not breaking it. She never ate any of the other hens' eggs though (that I know of). I TRIED to break her once by crouching by the nest box she was in, waiting for her to lay her egg. 20 minutes later, she layed it, I reached under her, grabbed her egg, and left a wooden egg, all within three seconds of her laying the egg. She looked at me, rather confused, and then immediatley went to peck at her egg. Of course the egg wouldn't break, and she couldn't seem to figure out why.

Anyway, my hens lay most of their eggs between 10am and 2pm, but I've had them lay anywhere from dawn to dusk.

 

[PetRock]

We only have two that are laying and they've only been laying for 2-3 weeks. Our Gold Sex Link lays like clockwork every morning before 8. Our Barred Rock waits until around noon and skips a day every so often. They both started off using the same nest box but our BR has been trying out the other two rather than share.

 

[PunkinPeep]

Mine are completely inconsistent. It seems like they're on a cycle - which makes sense with what i've read about it supposedly taking 26 hours to form an egg. For a while, i'll have all the eggs by 2:30. Then it will slowly get later and later, until i'm still collecting eggs before bedtime. Then they'll suddenly lay barely any eggs for a day - and then the next day, they're laying at 7 am.

 

[CaliBlueChicken]

One hen lays around 930am, then the rest follow... one of my girls waits till about 4pm.

 

[Whitewater]

So far, my Black Sex Link has been laying for about 2 weeks, and she lays within a half hour of noon, every time. If we're going to get an egg, she'll do it in that time frame. Obviously she never read the whole '26 hour process' thing!

The Black Australorp who is laying, well, I'm really not sure with her. She's only laid one good egg and a couple shell less ones -- but they were all after 2pm, like between 2pm and 5ish pm. I don't know if she'll stick to this pattern or not.

I like having eggs after noon because if they ever do start being loud with the egg song (which they don't do now), it won't annoy the neighbors as badly as them doing it at dawn!


Whitewater

 

[DurangoCal]

Thanks for all the responses! It seems funny that I expect them to lay in the morning. I guess it's from watching movies or reading books in which it's always in the early morning that the farmer, his wife, kids or farm hands go out to get the eggs after milking the cow and other such farm chores! Or maybe some just gather all the eggs that were laid the day before the next morning! I've read the eggs are good in the nest for at least a week after laying!