When do chickens lay?

[TXchickmum]

Our Golden Comets lay early in the AM. The Wyandotte and Australorp lay mid-morning. The Buff Orpingtons tend to lay late in the afternoon. All bets are off with the bantams. They lay at any time of the day....and, only when they're good and ready. -may go weeks without any eggs.

I check for eggs several times per day. -figure that they'll do what they do.

 

[tatertot]

ive got
3 of 15 laying that I'm aware of...but one seems to lay on the ground...how can I get her to use the nest boxes? Help

 

[Chick a Boom]

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ive got
3 of 15 laying that I'm aware of...but one seems to lay on the ground...how can I get her to use the nest boxes?

 

[Bens-Hens]

We put some golf balls in the nest boxes, first couple missed but after that it was like follow the leader.

 

[Chick a Boom]

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ive got
3 of 15 laying that I'm aware of...but one seems to lay on the ground...how can I get her to use the nest boxes?[/

 

[Lois Little]

We have 13 nest boxes for 28 chickens. At least 7 and sometimes 13 will lay in the same box. They use two of them mostly for pooping in, and 4 new ones we added when we added 4 hens, are completely ignored. Once in awhile there will be an egg on the floor. When we let them out of their pen to roam the yard, one of the Aracandas will lay a nice green egg on top of a plastic bag between a cement block and a bucket. Go figure. However, when confined to their house and pen, she uses the nests.

 

[DuginMT]

I have one EE (out of 12 hens) who decided to nest below the nesting boxes, on the floor in the back corner of the coop, and lays a green egg there faithfully almost every day. Since my coop is only 4' tall, it was becoming a pain to crawl back to the back corner of the coop to retrieve the egg, so I just cut another 6" diameter egg collection hole in the coop and installed another small 7" X 7" door over the hole above the rogue nest, and it works great. Pic below - the small door is over the rogue nest and the long door covers the holes for the four actual nesting boxes. Once in a while, one of the brown egg layers will also use the EE's nest also. I was unsure from your message if you have a chicken laying on the ground in the run, or in the floor of your coop. Hopefully the bird will eventually figure it out!

 

[Lois Little]

When confined to their coop and run, they use the nests in the coop, with just a few exceptions. When we let them out to roam the yard, we find the blue one by the bucket that I mentioned earlier. Also, we sometimes find eggs in our raised gardens when the hens have been out. Their outside area is very large, so they only get out on very hot days to take advantage of the shade under the trees. Although we have shaded areas in their pen, it isn't enough on very hot days. Our friends say we spoil them. I say if they give us nice, delicious eggs, I don't mind. I would let them out every day, all day, except for the hawks in our area, as well as coyotes.

 

[1876 Farm]

The wrong question was asked. The question should be, "At what time of day does one specific chicken begin laying and at what time of day each succeeding day will this same hen lay?

I was taught that a hen chicken usually begins laying @ about 10:00 AM standard time give or take an hour or two, and then everything being equal that same hen chicken lays a little or maybe a lot later each day until she gets so far behind with her laying that she actually is forced to skip a day.

Then she will start laying again @ about 10:00 AM the following morning. Of course there are going to be some days when our little red hen lays twice in one day but hey, nothing is perfect, right.

Is this a hard and fast rule? Why heck no it is not a hard and fast rule but as far as I know it is still the only rule that we have.

I heard that it takes around 24 hours for a chicken to create an egg, from the time a yolk is released until the egg is laid. You can find out, through searches online, the average number of eggs a specific breed of chicken can lay in a year. But, there are many things that affect how many eggs you will get each day. My hens have been very unpredictable this year, any little change causes an upset and a change in egg laying pattern, and this year I have introduced 16 new hens, I had a hen go broody and then hatch 7 chicks. Each of these events cause egg laying changes. Hope this helps.

 

[cortner1195]

While I understand the 25 hour laying cycle, all of my chickens lay in the first half of the day, but rarely two days in a row. Since August I have gotten about 6-8 eggs per week from my two RIR's. And usually 4-5 eggs per week from my single SLW. So, I can let them out any time after 1pm, and the laying is done for the day. Now we are in full moult on my one year olds, and losing lots of feathers on most of my pullets. I believe we have two of 12 pullets that have started to lay small eggs in the last week.

I had to put curtains up over the entrances to the other three nest boxes to stop the pullets from sleeping in them. This will work for me, as everyone has been laying behind the two curtained boxes up to now. Last night no one slept in the boxes! Yea..