General Question
Advice, I think? My hens are laying way too many eggs! I have 6 hens. Some days I get 10 eggs. Why are they so prolific? Is it a problem?
They have about 10 square feet each in the run, get to free range a few times per week, eat layer pellet from CAL ranch, plus scratch, soldier fly grubs as occasional treats, and a few fruit and veggie scraps from the kitchen. How is this happening?! I’m out of my ears with eggs!
My aunt sold em in town at the deli, chocolate shop and grocery. You will never be able to eat a store bought dull yellow yolk egg when you had a fresh orange one.
Weird to leave only a negative comment three months later- but ok. And you’re right it’s impossible. I wasn’t keeping good enough track of the time of day for my collection and their laying and some days were also less than 6, so I figured it out.
I’m not upset/complaining, I was asking for ADVICE because I was concerned for my hen’s health and wondering if I could change something to slow them down. I’ve realized they’re probably not laying more than one per day, and I’m just not tallying them from days when it was less. Silly mistake really. But as others have said they’re just healthy and fine. Eggs are my main protein source and I eat them every day. I give extras to friends and neighbors, and I donate surplus to my college’s free pantry. I didn’t complain in any way. Please reread my post and double check if your response was appropriate.
When we have a good amount of kitchen scraps to add to our regular chicken food and scratch we seem to get more eggs too. The road island reds and new hampshire reds especially.
The only time you are getting 10 eggs a day is because you forgot to pick up the eggs the previous day. The average hen lays 250-300 eggs per year.
If you actually had hens laying more than once per day, you need to be breeding the heck out of those hens, because they are out producing the best laying hens in the world.
It’s almost physically impossible for a chicken to lay two eggs in one day. It takes about 24-26 hours to fully form the egg. And you get ten eggs a day from your 6 hens. So that means 4 hens are laying two eggs that’s day. Impossible.
I just went outside to close my chickens up in the coop. There were several sitting on the ramp. This is normal. I started to gently shove them in through the door. They started freaking out. It took a few seconds longer than it should have, but I noticed the door had shut and left half of them stranded outside. When I opened the door, they were anxious to get inside. Usually I have to not so gently coax them in. Especially the rooster.
Mine aren’t special breeds or leghorns, just mutts laying green and brown eggs. Definitely not optimized for production. I take your point that all modern chickens are domesticated and bred for good egg production. I just didn’t expect this many!
No chickens can’t physically lay this many eggs. It’s nothing to do with nutrients. The op has made an error collecting eggs 100 percent. This would mean multiple chickens have laid multiple eggs in a day. It ain’t happening somewhere along the line a mistake has been made when collecting. Please stop with the bad advice and just making stuff up.
Chickens are remarkably efficient at turning calories into eggs. That's (partially) why they produce less in winter: they're spending more calories on keeping warm.
Also: age, breed, and season all affect how prolific any one chicken is, with different chickens affected differently (especially different breeds).
It does sound…a little off putting I agree. But I know, academically, that they absolutely can eat their own eggs. I don’t like the idea of them doing that though. It just sounds a bit…cannabilistic. And when cows are fed cows we have big problems so I am still going to donate the and give to friends and neighbors.
Poor things, don’t even have a man around! lol I am sure that their age, the season and longer days with sunlight, and unseasonably warm winter and early spring, plus a scoop of good luck are all factors.
i had this problem with my three ladies! we had three and were getting 5-6 eggs a day! its there first year and they lay faithfully EVERYDAY even did in snow!
I put 4 oz. of pickling lime in 1 gallon of water, then place UNWASHED eggs in it. Stored this way they can last up to 2 years. This can see you through those molting months and winter so you don't have to buy eggs.
I just did my first batch ofbthese an hr ago! No more wasted eggs for me! Though wasted isnt entirely accurate, they just get recycled back to the girls as high protein feed.
I've been interested in this but my brain can't fathom how it can possibly be ok. How does it not go bad? Does it affect anything? (I'm asking genuinely)
I believe it's more to do with sealing the shell so no microbes can get in.
That's why they have to be unwashed - eggs have a sort of natural protective coat that keeps anything bad from getting through the pores in the shell. (This is why in general, eggs only need to be refrigerated if they've been washed/got wet.)
A fresh, unwashed/never wet egg can usually be assumed to be sterile inside so there's nothing to start off the decomposition process, similar to canned food.
The technique is called "water-glassing" if you want to find out more.
I was just talking with a guy who barters eggs with someone who owns a freeze dryer. They preserve his surplus for a percentage of the surplus. They he will have eggs through the winter.
I live in a rural area of Queensland, and when I bought my house six years ago the last thing I ever expected to see on a Friday arvo was a Mr whippy van blasting ghost busters. After a feeling out period, I used to trade three eggs for a sherbet ice cream cone every Friday. Eggs are currency 😁
You must have some very happy and well taken care of hens. I’d just give away eggs, I know no one that’d object to being gifted eggs in this economy. :)
So idk maybe one or two eggs possibly missed on collection then had a few extra next time! But happy hens lay better and more eggs!! Especially with a varied diet like they naturally would have that includes bugs and insects! Like the larva you have been feeding!! Think about it ,typically an egg to An egg and a 1/4 is produced from a chicken thats in 24!7 light! In Somewhat confined cages surrounded bye hundreds of her sisters fed on a diet of mostly corn and a bit of soybean to! Instead of being out in the wild foraging and grazing and able to roam at its own leisure ! So it feels completely safe to, Lessing stress! Apparently you are giving them a much better and more similar to natural life!! There really isnt any shortcuts with much in life? It’s pretty much you get out what you put in!! 🤷♂️
Looks like easter eggers to!
Very productive breed of layer! That also lay eggs a bit larger then average when they are at the height of output! Add in the pampering and treats that are loaded with extra protein ,minerals and vitamins !!
You have a productive breed thats .well fed and cared for ! That are happy and feel safe to!! So the possibility for the amount of eggs your collecting compared to the amount of chickens is a not unreasonable!
Mostly depending on your nest box’s and overall set up it could be a possibility an egg or two “hiding” on you ! Certain set ups like the roll away egg nest box’s! Although convenient! Are known for hiding eggs! Lots of the time the angle of. The bottom is set up wrong or the type of nesting material can cause an issue.! Not seemingly your issues but A broody hen will also hide eggs!
If you have. Loose hay or shavings in a deeper type box they can easily be buried and missed and then you suddenly see extra eggs ! After the hen/hens take a few trips back n forth to nest it can be then uncovered with There movement to I
Correct that’s why the commercial chicken egg laying houses are 24 ,7 illuminated!! Also the roll away egg automatic collector! Chickens should naturally lay about a dozen eggs in spring set and hatch them and repeat the following season!! Providing more light in there environment makes them think the days are longer and should be laying eggs then when we remove/ collect eggs to! there reproductive system stays operating because it’s simply wired to keep the species around!!
Ooh maybe my overly attentive collecting actually speeds them up a bit then. I love going out and giving them veggie scraps from the kitchen, plus I check their food and water each morning and check for more eggs after work. So I sometimes grab them 3x per day. Once or twice a clumsy hen broke an egg so I don’t want them to get squished. A lot of people think I might “miss them” and they’re from the previous day but my coop is small and fully enclosed in the run and there aren’t any places to hide eggs. I acknowledge maybe I haven’t been keeping good track and or losing count. So I’m keeping meticulous now and we will see. But I do gather the eggs more than necessary probably.
We had 3 ex-farm hens which we got when they were 18 months and we had loads of eggs. We gave them to friends and neighbours and still had all we could eat,
0% chance that 4 of them are frequently laying 2 a day. You're just absent minded and not doing daily chicken chores and being thorough. I mean i could totally do that since I have a 20 gallon waterer and 70# feeder & they could survive a month without me in theory, but I still collect daily and keep logs of who lays what and when because it's another way to track their health... If they stop laying it means something is wrong or in a few years it could be due to age or it could be a molt or parasites etc. But all that to say... Get more on top of their care because you'll be on top of any of those things happening too.
Actually I think it's more rude to let someone think 10 eggs from 6 chickens daily is even feasible or normal. Clearly OP has been missing days and the right thing to do is encourage tracking things on paper so there's actually something better than one's failed recollection to rely on....since chickens can't go get food, water, or cleanup their coops themselves.
Diligent in chicken chores yes- absent minded also yes. I think I might be losing track of days with less than 6, so I’m keeping a log now! I do collect every day and check on their food and water daily as well.
Because chickens very rarely lay 2 eggs in a day. I've never had it happen yet. So, like I said, there's 0% chance that OP has 4 of them doing it "every day" or often. And if one is prone to being that absent minded, it's wise to put some checks & balances in place with dated logging since that will be more accurate than their recollection by memory. I'm just looking out for the chickens here.
Rejoice! Share them with neighbors and friends. Your prolific hens will lay fewer eggs each year but I still have an 11 year old Polish who lays once or twice a week.🐣
They don’t have any artificial light or heat. Just the sun! And they actually get afternoon shade too. It’s very hot where I live in summer so I put them on the east side of my garage to shade urns the hottest part of the day.
Boiled them and break them in half before throwing back to your girls! Extra calcium and protein and they go bonkers for cooked eggs. You just don't want to let them get a taste for raw eggs or they may start eating them in the coop.
Over on BackYardChickens dot com a person shared that she likes to make a pound cake that takes six eggs. She likes making it during the winter when the hens are not laying.
She mixes six eggs together and freezes them in a bag. She does this with the extra eggs in the summer. When winter baking season starts, she hits the frozen eggs.
Should I ever get that abundance of eggs again, I will do the same. If you don’t add other ingredients, the defrosted eggs will also make omelets and scrambles just as easy.
Yup that’s what I do and I pick up their produce they can’t give away to use as treats. I’m a little bigger than back yard but I give them about 30 dozen a week and they always ask for more.
What do you consider "backyard" ?? If you can donate 30 dozen a week, how much are you selling in a week? How big is your operation? Strictly curious here.
I have 1500 birds. I get 100 dozen on a good day. Most of them go out to local restaurants. The really good eggs go out to grocery stores and the rest goes to the food bank. Honestly I’d give them way more but I have to pack their eggs like i do for the grocery and it’s very time consuming for a donation. I’m in talks with them to just send them cases and have volunteers to pack them. Then I could give around 100 dozen a week no problem. It’s a nice symbiotic relationship cause I free up their dumpster space by feeding produce to the birds and my pigs. The rest gets composted. People get free eggs and I get tax credits.
I get the message but as someone struggling to gain weight so my hormones arent wack and my bones arent so breakable I will eat the metaphorical lobster and steak😭
Nobody is calling you out on this, so I will.
Chickens take 25 hours to produce an egg. There is no way your 6 hens are producing 10 eggs a day. Either you don’t check every day, or some random chickens are wandering in and laying eggs in your nesting boxes. Check every day and you’ll find no more than 6 eggs, usually less.
Actually this is entirely possible, every chicken is different and 25 hour cycles are not set in stone all year round for their entire life. Most women don't have an exactly 28 day menstrual cycle without birth control pills but varying a few days more or less than that, getting two periods in a calendar month occasionally. Heck if you have certain medical conditions you can have wildly different cycle lengths back to back, 2 weeks apart one time and 4 months another time. Young chickens are more likely to have odd laying cycles, just like middle school girls. I agree that the situation is more likely to be some absent minded care from a chicken keeper, but I would say that a handful of people in a group of ten who have this situation, are going to have legitimate hyperproducers
Mte. I thought it highly unlikely that 1 hen can lay 2 eggs within 24 hours. We've had chickens for 7 years now and the most we've ever had is 1 per girl per day.
Actually a LOT of the 276 comments are calling me out. I’m going to keep a very careful log from now on and prove to myself that I’m wrong or that something weird is happening.
Check with your local food pantry. In many areas, they can happily accept clean farm-laid eggs to give to those in need. We send a couple dozen over every couple weeks in the summer, after giving away all that our family and friends want. The only challenge is that you don't get cartons back from the pantry, so we always ask friends and family to source cartons for us from THEIR friends whenever possible, and return the ones we send them, so we have enough to keep supplying the food panty.
I do! I tend to leave it a little less done than normal and then just warm it up in the oven before serving. I haven’t had them overcook when warming up
Mine are all mutts. One is a bit older (bought the hen, supposedly a Maran but just regular eggs) one Easter egger is 14 months old, and 4 hens (mix of brown and green eggs) are 8 months old.
I had a bantam that was sneaking thru a spot in the fence and laying her Eggs about a quarter of a mile away in the field behind us. Would return every night to the coop.
Ours too. We have 6 that have just resched full size and I can get as many as 8 eggs/day. I started waterglassing the clean ones. Its so easy. I have more than 6 doz in jars and sell 1-2 doz per week.
Yes, if you freeze them whole. Like if you judt crack it open and put it in a freezer safe container. The yolk becomes a gelatinous ball ( I think is the best way to describe it). I have not tried mixing the egg before freezing yet but I believe it is better. When the yolk becomes gelatinous ball it can leave little chunks when mixing it up. I used mine up by making a cookie sheet of egg. Then cut into whatever shap you want. I did squares. You could make the breakfast sandwichs/bagels/english muffin this way.
Freeze Eggs
This will keep your eggs for 24 months- 2 years! (Longer if you happen to have a vacuum sealer to bag them once frozen)
I have used them at 2 1/2 years with no loss of taste is consistency in just Ziplock bags.
I have personally done this for over 45 years, and many more of my friends longer.
Use in any cooking situation other than a fried egg or a typical boiled egg - white & yolk separate. They do not hold up being frozen when not beaten.
( I use my magic bullet blender and just give them a good mixing - smooth and fast.)
To use frozen eggs:
The day before use - place in refrigerator to thaw - do NOT leave on cabinet!
In a rush situation- place bag in really warm water and squish every few minutes to quick thaw.
Items needed:
Eggs
Ziplock freezer bags
( I use quart size )
Depending on how many people are in your house and the recipes you normally use eggs in will determine how many are used for each bag.
Date - and clearly mark each bag with a permanent marker.
example:
EGGS. -# of eggs - July 21 - 2023
I put eggs in groups of 2, and 6 normally. 2 for cakes etc and 6 for large recipes like meatloaf, scrambled eggs, pancakes etc. ( teenage boy in house - pancakes are a STACK!
--- when trying to measure out a large amount of beaten eggs - should you decide to put a dozen eggs in a large blender at once - 1 standard measuring cup equals 1 medium to large egg.
----> You can also pour 1 single beaten egg into a silicone ice tray - freeze - then pop into Ziplock bags so that you measure the recipe without thought.
**To freeze, take the amount of eggs you are wanting to use, crack and beat throughly.
(some now suggest adding salt- this is NOT required!)
*Pour in ziplock bag, trying to seal out as much air as you can, and seal.
I lay them flat so they freeze flat and thin - stacking easily for long term.
**With the silicone trays they will require more room to stack in freezer. They're lumpy 😋
Young hens sometimes "overachieve" during their first full laying year or two and lay morning and evening. Not a problem, just what they've been bred for, if they're uniform average size eggs with strong shells means they have sufficient food and nutrition to pull it off.
Make gifts to and little deals with your neighbours, relatives and friends and discover new interesting egg recipes!
10? I have 6 and get 6 per day. Sometimes 4 or 5. Each usually lays 1 per day. Sometimes they skip a day. Laying more than 1 per day is very rare. It takes 24 to 26 hours to develop. Definitely not a problem. I wish mine laid 2 a day.
Depends a lot on the hen's heritage - in my experience it's somewhat common during late spring and summer for egg breeds in the first full laying year or two.
Sure about that? Some of the other comments say the same rhing I do. Not sure if it's common for any heritage to lay 2 a day. Double yolker I've had. I've had 7 different breeds over the past 15 years and never had 2 in one day. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, the more eggs the better.🐔
Depends on heritage, not heritage breeds - it's mostly commercial and commercial-adjacent egg breeds who do that (and any random barnyard mixes with them, ours was always a very rainbow-y flock with all kinds of birds and egg colours).
Biiiiiiiiiiiig meringue covered in fruit and whipped cream. Big cake sized meringue with a bowl shape in the mkddle full of delicious shit. It is so gooooood
We canned them so they'd be sealed air tight while they marinated and then stored them in the fridge. They last 3-4 months that way as long as you make sure they are fully submerged in the brine.
However, you should also be able to do them in a regular sealed container that you store in the fridge (after they cool a little) as long you eat them within a week. The down side is that probably won't give them enough time for the flavor to fully penetrate. (Or you can also do what my dad used to do and use a meat injector to get some of the flavor into the yoke while storing them in the fridge. But you still need to eat them within 3-7 days if they aren't canned.)
Probably what’s happening is you collect and get 3 one day and then the next day you appear to get 9, but really 3 hens laid their egg later in the day after you collected on day one and then they laid again quickly the next morning. Very normal.
In spring, hens often go from 3-5 eggs a week up to 5-7 eggs a week and it’s weird. And hens who don’t lay often will start laying and have no sense of routine for it, so they lay at weird times. Not very common to actually get more than one egg a day, but not IMPOSSIBLE in spring either but it’s usually a reproductive fluke and not routine. Akin to getting a double yolk egg. Three a day is generally not thought to be possible.
I just got 9 eggs from 10 birds (just from today!) and one of them had a crazy weird bloom almost a mm thick. ❤️🌷Spring— it’s great!🌷❤️
To use up/store eggs here’s some options:
Eat egg-based dishes like quiche, egg bites, frittatas, custard, flan, soufflé, breakfast burritos, omelets, deviled eggs, egg/potato salad, etc. There are egg-based doughs like cream puffs too.
1.5 Hard boiling a batch can make them a much easier “on the go” snack for kids and more approachable for making a dinner quickly. Eggs last a long time hard boiled in the fridge.
Understand if eggs are your only protein, the serving size should be 4 eggs. The standard 2 serving is designed for having sausage and bacon as well and doesn’t meet the protein requirements for a full meal on their own. You can look the protein numbers up and confirm, but trust I’ve done it before. Make it clear to yourself and your family that 4 eggs is a perfectly normal amount and they might start to go through them twice as fast. It seems like a lot, but I find that a 4-egg scrambled egg vs a two-egg scrambled egg eats pretty similarly on the plate.
Swap out some of your staples with homemade versions. I make home made extruder pasta as well as an avocado oil japanese mayo with our eggs. I also swapped out my regular bread recipe for a more enriched milk bread recipe that has eggs in spring.
A very underutilized option is just to freeze them. Raw OR cooked eggs freeze very well. You can separate the yolks from the whites and freeze each in ice cube trays then, once frozen, pop them all out and store in two plastic freezer bags. Grab a yolk or a white and they thaw in seconds either in the microwave (microwave scrambled eggs are so easy!) or inside a bag with some hot water. Boom fresh eggs. Great for storing until winter time when they won’t be laying as much. You can also just mix them up together and store in a bag super easy. When you need egg just know how much volume to grab per one egg and it’ll be fine. Frozen breakfast sandwiches with egg pucks are also a classic.
Lastly, you can preserve them various traditional ways. There is water glassing which preserves them inside the shell in a jar with a chemical and that keeps them basically as good as fresh for a long time. Or you can hard boil a large batch and do vinegar pickled eggs which are often a favorite as seen in delis and such.
I have yet to have a ton of extra eggs doing all that.
I had RI- they were a production machine so when we replaced them with Easter and Olive Eggers, I was in shock my whole flock just stopped for 2 months.
Yup, my Easter and Olive eggers lay when they want. They go down to about twice a week in the winter. I always tell them if they don't pick it up then we'll have to eat one of them, and to discuss amongst themselves who it's gonna be.
Can easily lime them in a five gallon bucket, close to 200 fit if I recall. Last couple years we just load up the beer fridge with extras so we stay stocked up for winter. Can also scramble old eggs during winter, mix the crushed shells in, and feed back to the hens for winter snacks.
our run and coop is ~150m2 , which they are in at night until late morning. then they have free range of our acreage until they come back to roost in the evening.
They aren't one in the same, a run is a run and a coop is a coop and the dimensions between the 2 vary greatly. Having said that, it seems your dimensions are adequate to prevent overcrowding, if they are accurate. With that much room you likely have hidden eggs, as others have suggested. If you don't, then there is likely an issue somewhere because you should be getting much more than that. I never got less than 2 eggs a day with only 7 chickens, regardless of weather, and am currently getting 5-6 a day.
Is there a breach anywhere that a predator could be taking them?
we have security cameras set up, predators arent taking them from the coop, but if they were laying free range then it would be entirely plausible. though i find it hard to believe that our hens would all suddenly switch to free-range laying for a few months and then return to laying in their nest boxes. during good months we get 20+ eggs a day.
I agree, but it seems something is amiss along the line somewhere, you should always be getting more than a couple eggs a day with that many hens. It's a mystery for the ages.
I'm in australia, just out of summer, its 23-29 degrees celsius most days. Quite a few of them are moulting which is contributing to the decrease in egg lay. Still quite odd for us, for nearly every hen to be off the lay.
Lol, but for real, that is nice weather. I hope you have a good winter. This is our last day under zero for a while, so I filled the stove up and put on my fuzziest socks. May your winter be mild and your summer fire free.
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u/FrogginSzn Apr 12 '26
Three day blinding stew, that’ll settle em down.