When will my chickens stop freeloading!?!

[Ila88]

My question is about my four month old hen who laid a cute little egg last week, but not again. Do they normally have a slow start?

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

My question is about my four month old hen who laid a cute little egg last week, but not again. Do they normally have a slow start?

Yes - perfectly normal - their reproductive system is many moving parts that all must work in perfect harmony to produce a good egg. You will not only see it working in stops and starts, but also times when some parts are operating and others are not resulting in all sorts of wonky things from eggs with no yolk, eggs with no outer shell, eggs with funny outer shells, etc. When you stop and think about what really goes into making each egg it's amazing that it happens at all, lol, let alone nearly daily with many of the higher producing breeds....and it makes sense that it can take a bit for the system to be running at peak performance.