We’ve had our production red hens for 19 weeks now. I figured we’d have started seeing some eggs in the last week or so but nothing yet. I’ve got them switched over to laying feed. When do young hens usually start laying?

With production reds, I’d think at about 18 weeks they’d start laying. Some sets will start laying later in time though.

Patience

Day length is decreasing quickly now. That's NOT in your favor. Increasing daylength stimulates egg laying. Not saying they won't lay, but they shouldn't lay good until after Dec 21.

As far as the light goes, you can put a light on a timer and itll keep them laying. My uncle does that

X2
My wife was the same way. Now within 3 weeks were avg 16 out of 24

Absolutely. I worked with breeder hens for 12 years when I was in the commercial poultry industry. Those are the parents of the chicks that get grown out for slaughter. We grew those pullets in "blackout" houses so we could control the day length on them. They were given 8 hours of light until they were moved to the hen house at 20 weeks of age. They went on standard day length for a week or so, then we'd add 30-60 minutes per week until they received 16 hours per day from then on.

I’ve seen a bunch of yellow/yolk colored poop around the pen the last day or two. Is that a sign of them starting to try to lay or could they just have diarrhea from me switching feed this week?

My limited experience would say that’s just different colored poop. The color and texture changes with mine depending on what they eat. Put a few golf balls in the laying boxes.

Got three eggs in the last two days. Guess they’re getting rolling now.

Good deal!