Oh lay! Oh lay, oh lay, oh lay! (or send me some patience)

[SundaeGirl]

How long will I have to wait?

Gorgeous little flock have been here three weeks. We bought them at point-of-lay and the seller said we might need to wait two weeks for eggs until they'd settled in, but a week on from that still no sign that they are up for laying anything.

They appear to be very content in their run.

Are there any signs I could look for that they might at least be thinking about getting ready to lay?

And does it make any difference from breed to breed as to when they start laying?

We had our weeks before anything happened (it was Sept and we'd thought maybe we'd have to wait for Spring).....but they started one at a time and laid all through the winter. Now we have 4 a day from our 4 girls and can only just keep up with it all!
Mine started to 'curtsey' as I approached before they started laying (not cos I'm the queen!!) - but to show they'd be ready to receive a male!!!
Ours are all different breeds and lay different sized eggs.
Hope that helps.

You can also tell when they're coming in to lay when their combs get bigger and more red. They usually start within a week or so of their combs going dark IME. I've had lots of chickens and some have done the curtseying thing, others haven't, but the red comb is pretty reliable. I would also say that breeders are massively optimistic about how quickly they will start laying.

Oh yes I remember now - their combs did go red too.

I got mine 3 weeks ago too, told the same thing, they were POL and would be a couple of weeks before they started laying. Had first egg today! So hopefully yours won't be long now . AND, I was wondering which one did the deed and now I know because Bubbles (ahem, The Powerpuff girls, blame dd) 'curtseyed' to me today! I was wondering what she was doing but thought she was just being nervous because it was the first time I tried to stroke her.

Oh Pixel, that's so exciting! I did go out and look but no curtesy for me. What breed is she? Was the egg normal sized? I can't wait. I'm going to have to do some baking with our first one as everyone will want some.

One of mine (a bluebell) does seem properly red-combed but the others barely have any comb to speak of, although the Light Sussex Stars do look as though their combs may have got deeper.

I think you're right about the breeder being optimistic. 'point-of-nearly-laying' might have been a better description.

They are Goldlines (Rhode Island Red x Light Sussex), apparently they are supposed to be good layers. Our first egg is going in the batter for yorkshire puds on sunday to make it 'fair'. It is a normal size I suppose, it looks a bit on the small side to me because I normally buy the largest ones at the farm shop.

They start smaller and get bigger as the hens mature

Fluff up the nest boxes, ours didn't go in until the week leading up to laying.

Very much agreed about the whole point of lay thing - theoretically that's 21 weeks, but you'll often find that they're sold as POL from 18 weeks, and I've waited until 26-28 weeks for eggs before!

It will happen though!

First egg on Sunday (samll, perfectly formed) and one every day since!