Do Hens Lay Eggs in the Evening?

[azhenhouse]

It seems I have a hen in the nesting box getting ready to lay an egg. It is 6:10PM. Is this normal or is there a problem? It's been snowing all day today and is very cold out. It also snowed yesterday. The chickens have not stepped foot out into the cold for two days, even though they are free to do so. So, I don't know if weather has anything to do with her laying so late or if something is wrong. What do you think?

 

[gritsar]

Perfectly normal.
In general, it takes a hen about 26 hours to produce an egg. What I've noted with my adult hens is that they start out laying very early in the morning, lay about an hour later each day after that until it gets way late in the evenings. Then they either start back real early the next morning or take a day off and start again on the third morning.

 

[The Tinman]

I collected eggs today at about 5. Went to feed them dinner at 6 had 1 more egg.

 

[teach1rusl]

I've had mine lay that late in the summer months, when the days were longer. The latest mine lay at this time of year seems to be 4:30ish. But yeah...they can lay early or late

 

[Kathleen1115]

I have one that has been known to lay as late as 7pm, but she's just starting, is laying some rubber eggs, and hasn't quite settled into a routine. My EE, who lays pretty consistently every day, gradually gets later and later in the day until she hits around 5pm, then she skips a day and starts in the morning of the following day. The girls who don't lay every day seem to stay pretty consistent with their timing when they do lay. Mine are all within their first month of laying, so it's been interesting to watch as their patterns start to become clearer. We're even getting to the point where we can start to tell whose egg is whose even when we didn't see them in the box with it.

 

[44Wolves]

Perfectly Normal. You can probably find an egg at 3 in the Morning, too.

 

[Jesseschickens]

I lock myy hens up at around 8:30pm every day and there is almost always a hen in her box.

 

[lvchicken]

I wouldn't worry about your chickens laying late. Mine do it all the time. Once we heard a chicken at 3 am doing her egg laying clucking!

 

[wademach1977]

My chickens never lay in the morning but always lay in the afternoon or at nite so I have to go and check.

 

[Pinky]

I have hens that lay in the morning, some that lay in the afternoon, and some that lay in the evening right before dark.