We have two Delaware hens, we think and hope they are both hens, they are about 5 months old. This morning I let them out of coop into run and left for a few minutes to clean and refill water, when I returned one of them was acting kind of strange, nestled down in corner of run. When I came back with a food refill a few minutes later she hopped up and low and behold two eggs were where she had been huddled. I left to get my husband and when we got back 5 minutes later she was on eggs again but popped up when I rattled feeder.Our first eggs? She could not have laid both two within the time frame I was gone? Could they both have been laid the night before? I am confused. Help, these are our first chickens.
first eggs
Hens lay at most one egg a day so either one was laid the day before or you do indeed have two hens.
I agree.
But ZZ and I each have a single RIR pullet (they are sisters and we each took one), and we have noticed that very occasionally (only once for her and twice for me) that our girls appear to be laying twice a day....I wonder if very rarely in young hens their timing or their ability to lay is so off that the occasional second egg is laid sooner than normal after the first?
Do they then skip the next day or the previous one?
I think the previous....but they are young birds and do not lay every day. I just remember twice, a couple weeks apart, going out and finding two of Flossie's eggs in the nest in the afternoon. She lays a very large, thin shelled egg with accretions of calcium on the end. Very distinctive.
Then last week ZZ said she was puzzled because Cherry, Flossie's sister, appeared to have laid two eggs in one day.
At the time I only had two layers and one laid a very different sort of egg. ZZ only has one that lays a brown egg...and I hadn't mentioned what I had observed to her.
I am wondering if they are somehow retaining the previous day's egg and then laying it just before the other? It seem that something might be happening since neither of us has noticed this before in any other layers, and these two are sisters.
Do they have a brother or father to breed back to? It might be an interesting project to produce Double Eggers.
Nope...it is one of the very few occasions when I hatched three pullets out of three eggs.
But I had thought of that. RIR are such nice steady layers anyway...but one that frquently laid two a day would be very attractive...if the bird didn't die from exhaustion.
thanks for all the info. A couple hours later another egg appeared in same spot. I am thinking that the original two eggs were laid the previous day or two but I can't believe a predator would not have snatched it. Are Hawks just interested in chicken themselves or will they snatch eggs too? We have a few, big, hungry hawks around and had a close call yesterday so am keeping girls in coop which is really a 3' x 6' tractor. We moved it yesterday for fresh foraging but they are used to coming out and are complaining rather loudly. I am hoping this might encourage them to lay in the nesting box in tractor. I put an egg in there to give them the idea.
My pullets tend to lay their first eggs in random spots - "eggs happen". After a while they choose a favorite nest box or corner of a coop and become fairly predictable.
I've had snakes steal eggs but not hawks.
I relented and let Ricky and Agnes out and Ricky was acting peculiar again. I left for a little while and sure enough when I came back there was a new egg in the same spot. Ricky is the one we thought might be a rooster because she is so dominant, bigger and very loud but although I have not seen it I do think she is the one laying the eggs. I am assuming the first eggs are safe to eat, sounds like a dumb questin but you never know.
Perfectly safe:0)