When will my chickens lay eggs?
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Chickens | 661 comments
Even though I know that egg laying is unpredictable at this time of year, it’s always a bit disappointing when I lift the lid of the nesting box and there’s only one. An egg from Carol. She is firing on all cylinders now and producing one egg a day, the maximum that a domestic hen can produce.
“What’s going on with the other four chickens?” I think as I stump back through the garden in my dressing gown and wellies.
The other four chickens are elderly maidens, well into their third year. I know that after two years egg production diminishes but somehow I hoped that the organic food and beautiful adornments in the pen might make a difference. Of course they don’t. As the years roll by, the chickens will produce fewer and fewer eggs until they go to that great pecking ground in the sky.
The pretty white bantams, have never been very obliging on the egg laying front. In their prime, they probably only laid two or three eggs a week. They are not a laying strain and we knew this when we bought them. But we have discovered that they are very photogenic and are happy to model endlessly.
I’ve been checking the hen’s combs. A pink comb indicates that a chicken is going broody, and will not lay. They are all a bright vibrant red, including Mrs Boss (this chicken won The Broodiest of all Known Chickens Award 2004, 2005 and 2006).
So you can imagine my delight when I lifted the roof of the nesting box this morning and found two small eggs nestling beside Carol’s large speckled brown one. I sprang back to the kitchen to make the perfect breakfast omelette.
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Also my hen does not seem to be very broody and that doesn’t help when i want chicks and not eggs!
I live in south africa so we have just finished winter and it’s becoming spring now. how do i get chicks???
Thanks alot
Taryn
Hi Taryn
You can’t make a hen go broody although Silkies are prone to go broody. You just have to be patient and wait. I think that iy might be a good idea to invest in a younger rooster – if he is old and still doesn’t know the right position is a big problem. Perhaps he has the chicken equivalent of goofy teeth.
What is your set up? Do you just have the two? If so it would be kinder to invest in another hen too and then you would be 50% more likely to have a hen going broody.
I don’t know how to tell whether an egg is fertilised.
Hi
I’m having trouble with my silkie bantam hen & rooster, my hen just layed her first three eggs a day or two ago but is not laying anymore and i dont want to touch the eggs just incase they are fertalised and then she rejects them.
My rooster, im sure, does not know how to mate he has tried with my hen but only backwards and im sure she cant be fertelised if he does it backwards.Should i just leave it and hope he figures out the right way or should i get a new rooster?? (He is quite old.)
Also i bought my hen mainly for breeding purposis and not for eggs, as they do not produce very large eggs.Can you help with my chick problems.(or my lack there of)???
Hi fn,
I don’t think any bulling is taking place, other than the usual pecking order stuff. It does seem to be a mixture of all their feathers… i think. I’ll have to check.
They don’t seem to drink loads of water. I did start off by putting it in with them at night, but then worried about it spilling and wetting the coop. I’d read somewhere that they’d be fine overnight with out. But, yeah they are up earlier than me and I’ll give that a go again I think.
They seem to be quite shy about coming out of the coop and don’t spend as much time outside as I would have thought…
You’re right they do have great characters!
Hi Ruth
We always move from chick crumbs to layers pellets without a problem so I reckon that it would be fine to switch them.
I’m not sure about the ‘moulting’ so you need to research elsewhere. Also if you spend just 10 mins observing them it will be obvious if bullying is taking place.
Chickens love their water so I’d give them access to this at all times – even a saucer of water in their house overnight would make a difference if they get up earlier than you.
Apart from that I think that you are doing everything ‘right’. You probably won’t get eggs until 2011 as the days are now getting shorter and Pekins are not really a laying breed. However Pekins have great characters and I miss mine a lot.
Hi, I have four pekin bantams that are between 16 and 18 weeks old. Should I start them on layers pellets? They have been on Garvo minipellets until now.
I’m also worried as there seems to be lots of feathers in the house. Are they too young to moult or are they pulling them?
I give them a good few handfuls of grass each day (the coop is on plain earth), a handful of grain in the morning to say hello and they have access to their food all the time. They have access to water in the daytime. I’ve got barley straw in the coop and nesting box…
Just not sure if I’m doing everything right. Any tips would be great please!
Thanks
Thanks for the reassurance he just looks so scruffy and has always been so lovely
Hi Have recently about 4 weeks ago bought a trio of white silkies to add to our flock we were told to spray all our hens new and old with spray deodorant so they all smelt the same and would mix together guess what it worked! However, 4 weeks on my original Leghhorn rooster who till now looked better than any I’ve seen in local shows has suddenly started looking like he’s loosing his feathers and seems quite down could this be because of one of the silkies may be a cockerel and he’s being intimmidated even though he was the original cockerel in the group.
Hi Sue B
Some chickens naturally maoult around this time of year – so no need to worry. If your cockerel is bigger than the Silkies – being a Leghorn he is certain to be – he will remain top.
How do you know if a chicken is broody? Im told theres a difference between “broody” and “clucky”.
Howe do you “set” eggs?
How do you know they are fertile eggs?
It would be pointless putting un fertilized eggs under a hen, surely?
one of my chickens has stopped laying, she is about7 months old, she seems to go in egg then lays what looks like a rubber egg , what is the problem
just to let you know, that last nite i had a lonely egg left in the penn! how chuffed was i!!!
i dont know if this is of any relevance to my previous post, but iv still had no problems since!
im happy =)