When will my Chicken start laying egg????

[webbysmeme]

If you let you chickens free range, will they go to the coop to lay?

 

[webbysmeme]

If you let you chickens free range, will they go to the coop to lay?

When will my Chicken start laying egg????

I'm a new owner myself and what I've already found out in answer to that question is they will start laying when they are darn good and ready to and not a day before. All my pullets are supposedly the same age and I got them at 16 weeks. I have Rhode Island Reds and one of them started laying at 23 weeks and another one two weeks later which brings me up to last week and now a couple of times I've found 3 eggs in the box so the 4th one isn't laying yet at all yet.

I don't know if they will know to go to the coop, or if I will have to hunt thr eggs?

 

[Better Than Rubies]

Nice to have you here, kbinkley679!

I'm very impatient. Two of mine (23 weeks old) have had a beautiful red comb and waddles for a month now and one has been squatting for at least two weeks. The other about a week. They are getting equal attention from Hank.
Any day now. . .

I too had one who squatted for a long time before she ever started laying. And one who had a big and bright red comb for WEEKS before she, too, started laying. So, yes, those signs are the general guideline...certainly not the rule. But generally they do lay shortly after those signs, just not all pullets do, obviously.

If you let you chickens free range, will they go to the coop to lay?

That depends on the bird, probably. When my Production Red and Barred Rock had just started laying, they were out free ranging a couple days later and went in the dog house on their own to lay, then got back to foraging. But I'd imagine not all birds will be that good about it; I also had and still do have a tennis ball in the dog house to encourage them to lay in there, and have had it in there well before the first egg to get it in their heads, "That's where I'm supposed to lay." Do you have a fake egg or something similar in your nesting boxes?