I checked the hens this mid-morning, and they hadn’t laid anything.
It’s 2:45pm and I just got back from checking, as I walked up to the A-Frame I saw that Hawklady was down on the ground.
“Good,” I thought to myself, “she must have laid an egg.”
Surprise, surprise, when I opened the nest loft door, there was an egg, Hawklady jumped up to say “Hi!”, and my eyes blurred and freaked trying to see that green egg. I had trouble, since being visual I was expecting a certain colored egg, and my eyes couldn’t parse the lack of green on the egg. It was pale, not green, not white, not brown.
So I picked it up and it’s a very pale brown egg. Smallish. I then looked at all the hens. It must have been from an Australorp, being that pale brown. One of them before seems to have laid lighter eggs than the others. Anyhow, the Wyandotte eggs were always darker than the Australorps, and this was a very pale brown egg.
None of the Australorps, save one, had what I’d call “combs and wattles” that showed “red enough to be ready to lay”. One sort of did, but not really. The Wyandottes looked just as “not ready” as the Australorps. I’ll go back out and see if I can get my hands on that one Australorp and see if she’s submissive.
I then went to the SuperYard pen and peeked into the box, and sure enough, a nice skinny longish white egg. Just like day before yesterday. 🙂
So we have one Every-Other-Day-White-Leghorn layer, and a One-Time-Thus-Far-Hawklady-Green layer, and a One-Time-Maybe-Every-Day-or-Every-other-day-the-future-will-tell layer — probably an Australorp.
Both eggs were chilly. So they were probably laid not long after my mid-morning check. Figures. 😉 It’s a nice day, supposed to be in the mid-50’s, so out and about it’s nice in the sun, but in the shadows, as the nest boxes are, it’s chillier than not. Tonight it should be down in the 30’s, frosty if not freezy. That’s not so bad, since it was in the lower 40’s this morning, and the hens did lay. It’s the following days, when it’ll get into the 20’s that I’m more concerned about the hens not liking and stop laying.
In any case, it could be that the light is noticeably increasing to them, and they don’t mind laying. The darkest day of the year is past, and maybe they’ll just hang in there and lay some now, no big pattern, then get really going for Spring. Sounds good to me, but then, I’m not the one laying the eggs and living out back. 🙂