Counting Eggs

Counting eggs. Looking at internet sites that have lists of chicken breeds, somewhere in the description of the chicken you may find a listing of how many eggs that particular chicken is projected to lay either per year or by the week. For some one like me, I have to do the math. It's just how I'm wired. So for instance you might come across the Australorp who is projected to lay 260 eggs in one year. Now by chicken standards that's a bunch, since most chickens lay about 3 eggs per week. Divide that 260 eggs by 52 weeks and you end up with 5 eggs per week. So, if you were to know the amount of projected eggs each of your hens was expected to lay, you could find out how many eggs you could be expecting each day from your flock. Keeping in mind these numbers are based using the first 2 most productive egg laying years of the chicken. After 2 years the amount of eggs the chicken lays in a year goes down. Using the hens we have in our flock as an example, we'll do the math to find out how many eggs we can look for each day from our hens.

1 Buff Orpington - 3 eggs per week      3 x 1 = 3 eggs

1 Black Australorp - 5 eggs per week   5 x 1 = 5 eggs

1 Easter Egger - 4 eggs per week          4 x 1 = 4 eggs

3 Light Brahma - 3 eggs each per week  3 x 3 = 9 eggs

3 Cochin - 2 eggs each per week           2 x 3 = 6 eggs

4 Welsummer - 4 eggs each per week      4 x 4 = 16 eggs

 Our total number of eggs per week is 43 eggs.

Divide 43 eggs by 7 days and this will give you the amount of eggs you could expect to see from your hens each day. 43/7 = 6.14. Round this number down to 6. (Chickens are not going to lay a part of an egg. It's all or nothing.) 

Keep in mind also that there are factors that will lower the amount of eggs your hens may give you. Heat, cold, shorter days, diet, water, parasites, broody-ness and molting are some triggers that will make the hens lay less or not at all. Most of which, can be managed.

So, this is counting eggs. Or egg math. How ever you want to look at it.