When do Barred Rocks produce eggs?

As the 89,867,672nd ranked amateur chicken farmer in the world (currently) I don't know if my Barred Rock beauties are able to produce eggs yet.

I've read up that I should expect anywhere from 18-20 weeks, but I think my girls may be at the 24th or 25th week at this point. I may be mistaken, but I'm starting to think that maybe we are not doing something right.

We give them the recommended crumbles from the pet food store, and I also mix in the recommended amount of oyster shells with their feed. I also like to spoil them with plenty of meal worm, and my wife let's them attack a cabbage or two every now and then. Plus they love to eat some mallow and they have a whale of a time when I open the compost bin and their little snackies come out.

Also, we change their water pretty much every other day.

I love these chickens to death and I want more.

Should I be worried, or is there something we are missing?

Pecky, Janice and Ronald Alvin Johnson are all in good health. They are very much happy chicken shaped and Shane would only be prouder If one of them was blue.

I have about 7 Barred Rock hens in total. I find egg production to be less than predictable.  I wouldn’t worry that they are not producing yet.  I have some year old hens that did virtually nothing for the past couple of months ( my hens are divided into 2 coops). Yesterday, I checked ( the first time in A few days) and I had more eggs than I cared to handle.  

My black australorps didn't really start producing until close to 7 months old (28+ weeks). I got them in May, and it was November before I really started getting more than 1 egg randomly. In my case I think it was stress from heading into the winter. Once they started though, they kept right on chugging. I imagine yours will get started soon.

There does not seem to be anything in their diet of concern. Double check and make sure they are getting enough water and are not getting too hot. That can stress them, and stress can make them not lay eggs. Also, it never hurts to check multiple times throughout the day, in case they are laying eggs, but something is taking/eating them.

Good luck.

Any chance they are laying somewhere other than your designated spot?  We found eggs in all kind of random places before our girls learned to use the nesting boxes we provided.  

Dave Roades wrote:Any chance they are laying somewhere other than your designated spot?  We found eggs in all kind of random places before our girls learned to use the nesting boxes we provided.  

As a self-affirmed "Almost Chicken Expert", I agree with This^^.

If your girls are older than you think they should be to start (even given that random references are probably wrong), start checking everywhere. Just because you give them nice, clean, comfortable places to lay their eggs doesn't mean they're using them.
My girls tend to lay in random spots for the first few eggs; it's like they don't know what's going on and are unsure how to think about it. Eggs can be found in the middle of the yard - Surprise Eggs. After that, they start to get sneaky and instincts will kick in to "hide" the eggs. Yay.
Chicken instincts suck sometimes.

If they're in a run, you can usually keep them in the run until they've laid, then set a timer for roughly 19 hours after that for the next possible egg. (Don't listen to the haters who will tell you that chickens lay once every 26 hours or something) your birds will have their own schedule and it's up to you to figure out what that is. Nothing reasonable or predictable is what you should expect. You can let them roam about in-between times. It's not like chickens are smart or tricky or ...

If you let your girls free-range, check all the shrubbery, foundation plantings, grassy hillocks, behind things, and on top of other things. Check unreasonable places, water-filled ditches, under the porch, in the tractor seat (if you have one). Trust me on this.
I have spent more time than I care to talk about crawling under my back porch for eggs. Or searching the bramble patch in the side yard, This time of year, with things starting to heat up, all of my older hens are starting to slow their lay a bit, while the young ones are moving into their spots. I have broody hens firmly convinced they can hatch the 5 golf balls and 2 fake eggs they have stolen from other nests. I leave them to it.

I have a hen who is currently laying, unpredictibly, in the side yard which is full of nice straw that wasn't gathered in. How do I know she's laying over there? She left two eggs out for me to find while she's off finding another hard to reach place to lay, laughing at me the entire time. I love my girls, but I think about chicken dishes a lot.

Oh, and use fake eggs. You can buy them, make them out of Plaster of Paris (Sand-casting works great for that.), or use roughly egg-shaped rocks, or golf balls. I know. The hens really seem to think they are eggs, so ...
It helps to give the hens the bright idea that, if another hen thought your nest boxes were a cool place to lay eggs, maybe it will save her a long walk out to whatever spot she's been hiding things away. The hens don't seem to care what color the eggs are (I use brown and green fake eggs and white golf balls.), so feel free to have fun with it.

Dave Roades wrote:Any chance they are laying somewhere other than your designated spot?  We found eggs in all kind of random places before our girls learned to use the nesting boxes we provided.  

I thought about that. I started looking around their living area (we call it the congregation) and I haven't seen anything of note. I think I'll give it a better look this morning when I get home, because I haven't checked every spot.

All of my first hens were/are barred rocks, they started producing at about 6 months, which is what I expected. That being said they don't like heat, so production falls off during heat waves. And they do take a healthy month or two off during molting. I don't mind that but I understand if others do.

Kristine Keeney wrote:

Dave Roades wrote:Any chance they are laying somewhere other than your designated spot?  We found eggs in all kind of random places before our girls learned to use the nesting boxes we provided.  

As a self-affirmed "Almost Chicken Expert", I agree with This^^.


I have a hen who is currently laying, unpredictibly, in the side yard which is full of nice straw that wasn't gathered in. How do I know she's laying over there? She left two eggs out for me to find while she's off finding another hard to reach place to lay, laughing at me the entire time. I love my girls, but I think about chicken dishes a lot.

Your entire commentary was absolutely hilarious! thank you! I didn't even know about the fake egg thing until I started following more chicken wranglers on tiktok. I literally had no idea that it was even a thing. I guess my next option is to have an "Easter egg hunt" to see if I can find any surprises. If not, I'll just have to be patient. They'll do their thing like the other commenters have said. We have them enclosed in a shelter we build while my wife and I had to quarantine with covid. We have hawks in the area and we used to have more roaming cats, but the hawks might have gotten to them. We didn't want to lose one of our girls the hard way, and we haven't decided on whether getting a rooster would be an option as of yet. They have plenty of room and we made sure the girls had a wondrous play area.

Having chickens sounds like organized chaos, but I'm here for it. Thank you so much for your imparted wisdom!

Matt McSpadden wrote:My black australorps didn't really start producing until close to 7 months old (28+ weeks). I got them in May, and it was November before I really started getting more than 1 egg randomly. In my case I think it was stress from heading into the winter. Once they started though, they kept right on chugging. I imagine yours will get started soon.

There does not seem to be anything in their diet of concern. Double check and make sure they are getting enough water and are not getting too hot. That can stress them, and stress can make them not lay eggs. Also, it never hurts to check multiple times throughout the day, in case they are laying eggs, but something is taking/eating them.

Good luck.

grand advice! thank you! They seem to be content. Very curious and inquisitive. They are also warming up to us still, but they seem to be getting more comfortable as the days go on. They love to approach us when they know food is coming. I never thought about their water temp, but on the few hot days we have had it wasn't very warm at all. We have some coming as summer approaches I'll be mindful to keep an eye out for it! thank you!

Your entire commentary was absolutely hilarious! thank you!  

You are more than welcome. There's enough serious stuff in life, it helps to laugh at the funny things. Having chickens is great for my mental health because they are immensely funny.

I didn't even know about the fake egg thing until I started following more chicken wranglers on tiktok. I literally had no idea that it was even a thing. I guess my next option is to have an "Easter egg hunt" to see if I can find any surprises. If not, I'll just have to be patient. They'll do their thing like the other commenters have said.

They will do their thing without your blessing, so it's best to give your blessing early in your relationship with your flock.
Make certain to "float test" any eggs that you find in the yard. I'm sure that you practice the standard of using a "cracking bowl" when cooking eggs (where you use a separate dish to crack eggs into before adding them to anything you're cooking)  because you sound smart. If the eggs pass the "float test" (they don't float), and you candle them and they seem okay (a strong lightbulb, flashlight, or whatever to make sure you don't get a nasty surprise), then have fun on your "Easter Egg Hunt".

We had a surprise clutch where one of the hens just turned up with chicks one day. She lost most of them, but we have 2-month-old+ free bred chicks now. They are still growing, but have reached that wonderful teenager stage where they don't need Mom anymore and have been incorporated into the flock. We try to keep up on mowing areas where they might want to hide a nest, so as to reduce the potential for a hen getting eaten by something, but ...
We also tend to break any eggs found like that, since you can never know for sure when or under what circumstances the eggs were laid, and the weather is a thing.  Your experiences and choices may differ, as they should.

We have them enclosed in a shelter we build while my wife and I had to quarantine with covid. We have hawks in the area and we used to have more roaming cats, but the hawks might have gotten to them. We didn't want to lose one of our girls the hard way, and we haven't decided on whether getting a rooster would be an option as of yet. They have plenty of room and we made sure the girls had a wondrous play area.

Having chickens sounds like organized chaos, but I'm here for it. Thank you so much for your imparted wisdom!

Yes. All of the above. Yes.
We allow ours to free-range. Once the initial flock (quite a few years ago at this point) had established their favorite roosting spot, the newer additions kept the tradition going. Much like your older dogs will help to train the newer dogs, and housecats will do the same, chickens will follow the behavior patterns established by training the older chickens.
The only hard part is having to retrain them if I move their roosting site more than ten feet in any direction.

We have hawks and Mexican Eagles, as well as feral dogs and cats, snakes, hogs, ... I have had flocks killed out in a two-week span. One of the reasons we moved them closer to the house, added geese, and try to keep at least one rooster with them at all times is that we had to make certain choices about their care and it works for us.
Your Mileage May Vary.
Roosters are good to have, in a general sense, if you have enough hens that they don't tread too hard and have a good roo. Bad roos should be stew.  In fact, the only reason our last roo stayed so long (and has since gone to Freezer Camp) is that he was good to and for the hens, and was only starting to get jumpy. He had a bad habit of killing rivals so, when I knew I'd be releasing the new additions including 6 new cockerels, High Jump had to go. It's just part of flock management and you'll find your way.

Organized Chaos would be the best description of homesteading in general, but definitely of dealing with stubborn and opinionated critters. All of the poultry I have been blessed with experiencing have had Definite Opinions about food, housing, behavior patterns, and opportunities. They wait for me on the back porch and have been known to "knock" on the door if they think I'm late.
Yesterday, Darling Adorable chopped out a lot of "trash trees" that had gotten established under one of the mulberries and trimmed a mulberry so that I wasn't knocking into it when collecting eggs. He was followed around by a Very Opinionated Hen who told him, loudly, that she didn't approve. At All. Of *Anything* he was doing.

Chickens are fun. Chickens are astonishingly silly. They are little feathered bossy additions and are all the better for it.

Jøhn Kaltenbrüner wrote:

Matt McSpadden wrote:My black australorps didn't really start producing until close to 7 months old (28+ weeks). I got them in May, and it was November before I really started getting more than 1 egg randomly. In my case I think it was stress from heading into the winter. Once they started though, they kept right on chugging. I imagine yours will get started soon.

There does not seem to be anything in their diet of concern. Double check and make sure they are getting enough water and are not getting too hot. That can stress them, and stress can make them not lay eggs. Also, it never hurts to check multiple times throughout the day, in case they are laying eggs, but something is taking/eating them.

Good luck.

grand advice! thank you! They seem to be content. Very curious and inquisitive. They are also warming up to us still, but they seem to be getting more comfortable as the days go on. They love to approach us when they know food is coming. I never thought about their water temp, but on the few hot days we have had it wasn't very warm at all. We have some coming as summer approaches I'll be mindful to keep an eye out for it! thank you!

Keeping their water in the shade and doubling the amount you offer once the nighttime temperatures hit 80F is a great idea. Too cold of water can cause a shock to them, but offering iced treats when it's really hot out is good fun - just watch what you do and how they react.
I live in an area where hot weather is an issue, so I've made sure there are plenty of shady spots, damp soil to sit on, and lots of water. I also offer a higher protein food to help once Summer settles in. They will eat less during the warm months, so do what you can to keep them interested in eating.
Cool melon rind, frozen veggie scraps, and whatever food scraps (including meat trimmings and bones) are leftover are all great treats. The only thing I know for certain they don't like is the orange rind. So that gets sheet composted with chicken help.
Best thoughts!

I would keep the oyster shell separate from their feed rather than mixing it in, especially since they're not laying yet. Then they can eat it when they need it. It's possible for non-laying birds to get too much calcium, which is not good for them. Good luck!