[Tricia]

Hello
I have had 3 brown lowmans For just over a year. Recently I have been getting 4 eggs each day. Sometimes one egg is in the poo under their sleeping perch. How is that possible?
Treesha

[Eve]

Someone’s very keen to be an overachiever. Nature does things like that, just enjoy 

[Womble]

We have eighteen hens and no eggs.  Fancy a swap? 

[Fleecewife]

A hen's laying cycle is apparently less than 24 hours, closer to 23, so on long winter nights it's reasonable to expect that sometimes there will appear to be more than one egg a day.  Not every night though, more like once every 3 weeks or so then nothing the next day.  Of course it doesn't have to be the same hen who is laying the extra egg each time, maybe they're all keen 

[chrismahon]

I have a 'wacky' theory that fits what I have read and experienced. Hens laying systems completely shut down at night. If they do lay eggs off the perch it's normally a reaction to fright and they will be thin shelled because they need some daylight to finish them off. But if a hens system doesn't shut down, she will lay at night as well, so an egg every 12 hours or so. I did say it was wacky!


We have had hens laying two eggs in a day, but the second was always a softy, followed by no egg the next day.

[Tricia]

I love each of your replies. Thank you. I think the 23 hour cycle makes sense. There was a time in the summer when there weren’t all laying every day. I could be seeing the ‘extra’ egg because now they are all laying every day. I don’t collect the eggs at the same time each day, or even every day, and we don’t note the different colour and sizes except to note there is a difference. So, good call Fleecewife.


I’m very grateful to you all for taking the time. Thanks again. T

[Eve]

A 23-28 hour cycle but a need for 14 hours of daylight, hence the increase in egg production in spring and summer (and commercial enterprises using artificial light to keep the birds laying, wearing their poor bodies out even quicker). Plus the effect of the increase / reduction in daylight, so even with more daylight in August they can lay less than late winter / early spring.


I’ve also found that during weeks when I tend to the chickens at more or less the same time every day, they tend to lay very predictably and roughly the same number of eggs by the same time. Other times, when life takes over and the daily visit to the chicken coop is more random, the egg laying seems all over the place and I either think of them as ‘way to go, girls’ or ‘slackers’. I like to think they prefer routine but really it was just me who needed a routine   



And then there’s the impact of... (drumrolll) General Confusion In The Land Of Feathers    I’ve had chickens moult in February instead of September / October, going broody for Christmas, and drastically reduce laying for a week or so in May / June (looking back at it that might have been the weather as we have no predator attacks or anything to upset their little minds and hence bodies). Oh, and once there was red mite in February and it wasn’t even mild! So I now treat the coops year round with DE rather than just regular checking.


Nature does funny things