When will they lay?

queenie_29

Chirping
Aug 11, 2021
74
96
86
NSW, Australia
Hi, I'm a new chicken mum. I have 1 SLW, 1 GLW, 1 SL brahma, and 1 rhode island red. They are nearing the 20 week mark, and of course the whole family is really excited for the first egg. I know I'm probably being really impatient here, because part of the fun is not knowing when, but I was only allowed to get these chickens because I proved that we would save money on the eggs.

Anyway, I have read the rhodies tend to lay pretty early, but ours is bottom of the pecking order and she is still looking pretty slim.
Our two wyandottes (top of the pecking order) are both pretty thickset. They have pretty small combs and wattles, but are consistently bright red in the morning, and then reduce to a peachy kind of colour in the afternoon when we let them out to free range. How big do their combs get before they lay?
Finally, the brahma is a little puffball, and she is in a world of her own, that being said, she also looks quite mature, but I don't know if that's just the extensive amount of floof. We think she is probably a little way off, because her comb is teenie tiny, and there is no sign of wattles, on the other hand she is consistently bright red.

Thanks for helping an impatient chicken keeper, I just really love them, and we are all super keen to find out! Please let me know your thoughts on the timeline!
 
Hello! Should be any day/week now ;). Have they been checking out the nesting box lately? If they seem really interested and have been scratching around, that’s a good sign. Also, I can always tell it’ll be soon when they start chicken-wauling a lot (not the ‘egg song’ that’s the same as the general distress alert, but more of a complainy, drawn out sort of singing they do … it’s hard to explain and unfortunately, I don’t have any YouTube videos posted). Hope this helps a little bit! But if you DO hear the ‘egg song’ - that bawk, bawk, bawk, baw-GOCK! sound - they may have laid their first egg. Some girls like to make a HUGE show of it while others don‘t make any announcement at all. Good luck!
 
Thanks so much for your help! Our rhodie does are really long moany kind of thing a lot, and very loudly - is that what you mean? We have kind of a small nesting box situation, so I'm not really sure about them visiting. We made the mistake of buying a coop that was a little bit too small, so they tend to all squish into the nesting boxes when it's semi-dark before I shut the door. Will they lay in the same spot that they sleep in, or should I look into building some kind of exterior nesting box? Thanks for your help - we are all very excited!
 
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We joked that our first egg was a thousand dollar egg. Even after 5 years I'm definitely still not saving a single penny with chicken eggs. I could say the same about my vegetable garden too... 😅
Have you read the $64 Tomato?

There were a couple years I ended up 'in the black', at least as far as feed went..and maybe some bedding.......but yeah, chickeneering is hobby, not a money saver.
 
Have you read the $64 Tomato?

There were a couple years I ended up 'in the black', at least as far as feed went..and maybe some bedding.......but yeah, chickeneering is hobby, not a money saver.
Haven't read it but as soon as I got to the part about planning vacations around a harvest, I thought, "Yup, that sounds like me."

I planned my next trip for November so hubby doesn't have to water the garden. It takes him 10 minutes just to do 1 row of potted plants. 😅
 

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