A healthy Coturnix hen lays close to one egg a day at peak — commonly 200 to 300 per year, with about 200 a typical first-year count. Peak output runs through roughly the first year of lay, then declines.
The headline numbers: near-daily lay at peak, commonly 200–300 eggs a year, with about 200 a typical first-year count per NSW Department of Primary Industries guidance. The useful knowledge is the shape around those numbers, because a flat number can't tell you whether your quiet Tuesday is a problem.
The curve of a laying life. First egg between six and eight weeks old (stress or short daylight can push it toward ten or twelve). Production climbs fast to near-daily. Peak lay runs through roughly the first year — poultry extension guidance treats the first year of lay as the economically productive window, which is why commercial operations turn their laying flocks annually. Through the second year, lay declines; most backyard hens still produce, just not at first-year pace (where lifespan fits in). Keepers planning steady supply run rolling flocks, hatching replacements and retiring seniors, rather than expecting year-three hens to lay like year-one hens.
The two inputs the number depends on:
Light. Lay runs on day length: 14+ hours for sustained production. On natural light alone, expect the natural seasonal shape — strong through long days, a real slowdown into autumn and winter. Supplemental light on a timer maintains winter lay; a deliberate winter rest is the alternative policy. (Whether continuous lighting shortens hens' lives is long-standing keeper belief rather than established fact; we grade it as such.)
Calcium and ration. Near-daily shelling is a mineral outflow that the layer program — layer ration plus free-choice oyster shell — exists to refill. The warning lights of a shortfall are soft or shell-less eggs before they're missing eggs.
What normal variance looks like: single skipped days (an egg takes over a day to build, so perfectly daily is the exception), a synchronized dip after any covey stress (a move, a predator scare at the wire, heat waves, sudden weather; working keepers report lay pausing for days after storms), molt, and the seasonal curve above. What's not normal: a sustained multi-week collapse in good light and feed. Work the checklist: light hours, calcium dish, stressors, parasites, and whether a hen is hiding eggs in bedding you haven't excavated.
Egg size, while we're counting: standard lines lay eggs commonly cited at 9–12 g; jumbo lines at 12–16 g, roughly 50% larger — which changes your conversion math and your carton game.
FAQ
Do they lay year-round?
Under 14+ hours of light (natural or supplemented), essentially yes. On natural short days, no — and that's biology, not malfunction.
One hen, how many eggs a week?
Five to six in season; that's the arithmetic behind the 300-a-year top end. Plan coveys on that math (the flock-size math).
Do they need a rooster to lay?
No. Production is identical without one; roosters change fertility, not output.