When do hens usually lay their eggs? (time of day/night)

[jimmywalt]

When do hens usually lay their eggs? During the dark of night, morning, afternoon, evening or when?

I found out first egg in the coop today after work, and now I'm excited to find more. But I don't want to run out there every hour (all night or day) to look! So when is the best time?

Thanks.

 

[Chicks Galore3]

They lay throughout the day. I have 4 that lay in the morning, (6ish-9ish- 5 that lay in the afternoon, (11ish-1:00ish) and 3 that lay late. (6ish-9ish.) So they lay whenever they want. Congrats on the first egg!!!

 

[Kelsie2290]

Mine lay though out the day, most probably lay between 10am and 1pm. But they can lay from early in the morning to late at night, I have collected eggs at 9pm and when I went out a 10pm there were more eggs, and more eggs by 6am the next morning. The individual hens, once consistently laying, do seem to lay their eggs around the same time each day though, iow the morning layers tend to mostly lay their eggs in the morning. When they first start laying though, they are not at all consistent, it takes them a lot longer to actually get around to laying that egg and they will skip days etc and a lot of them will just go in and out and sit in the nesting boxes for hours and not do anything.