How a Hen lays her egg?
By Wiebe H. van der Molen (molrenku@diva.nl) In books on poultry you can find how the egg is formed in the hen and how the young develops within. But almost nothing is written about oviposition. In wildlife films on TV you see birds nesting, brooding, the chickens hatching and being fed by their parents, but never I saw a bird laying an egg. So I looked for myself. It is not easy to see what really happens, and I did not understand what I observed. So I asked the Poultry Research Institute in Beekbergen for advice. Mr. Teunis showed me a video, explained the process and introduced me to the literature. It appeared to be far more interesting than I supposed at first. In the following, I will try to describe and explain what a laying hen does, five, six, even seven times a week. Chickens never lay more than one egg per day. As a rule, chickens lay in the morning, but each day a little later. Sometimes the last egg of a series is produced in the early afternoon. When it gets too late, the
