Morning collection was always the method I heard about, from many and varied areas. I think it had to do with feeding hens in the morning, getting feeding out of the way. Plus with hens eating outside, the nests are then empty of crabby birds ( usually!), so eggs are easy to collect. You can continue on with work, wash eggs, put in cool storage or eat them before they spoil.
Usually folks did some chores, milking, feeding, before eating a big breakfast. which took time to fix. Especially in past times, with other farm jobs all being so labor intensive, you can't waste time running from job to job. Hens done AM, check! Finished with hen work, related jobs until evening lockup. You needed to complete each of your jobs and go to the next one or you run out of work day.
With smaller farms, hobby hens, more time available to many people, it would be easy to wander in and out of the henhouse to check for fresh eggs laid during the day.

I was raised on a farm and never heard of gathering eggs in the morning! The eggs were always gathered in the late afternoon.

WE HAVE THE KIDS GATHER THE EGGS WHEN THEY GET HOME FROM SCHOOL.

well, since my dratted chickens are eating eggs, i gather morning, noon, evening, and in between.

I gather the eggs 3 times a day. Got in this habit when we too had hens eating eggs. I pick up eggs at 9 am and 12 noon before I go to work and hubby gathers eggs around 4 pm when he gets home from work. An interesting note: most of my production reds lay all their eggs by noon but my mixed hens in a second hen house lay all their eggs after noon. I have not figured out why yet. The hen houses and nest boxes are both oriented in the same way and light conditions are identical. Its just a weird mystery.
Linda

I feed in the AM and collect eggs in the afternoon. Mom always said " get eggs before noon?, it's too soon". Hmm, now I think I know why, duh. maybe the angle of the sun?

I always feed my chickens in the late afternoon.....I want them to scrounge all day for the bgs and hoppers etc and also because I can always be assured that they will be fenced and enclosed in their house before dark.......I've only once found eggs that were broken and it wasn't the chicens but a possum.....I discovered him when he filled his belly with my eggs and then decided to take a nap.......his last nap..LOL

Up here in the frozen north, if I wait until morning to collect the eggs, they're going to have a few cracks in them. One hen sits on the nest around 7:00 a.m., but the pullets lay a little later. So to leave them u ntil next morning, well, that would be egg-sicle.

I'm amazed that the pullets have started laying -- they hatched April 30 and May 30

I don't use lights, so expect that my chickies will stop laying anytime soon. I don't expect eggs over January and February.

Isn't it funny how these myths become engrained in "Non-farm" minds?

My girls also go out in the morning, forage all day and start laying in the afternoon. The earlier I let them out the sooner they start producing.

So far I'm still getting an egg a day from each.

We aren't drownding in eggs like we did at first, we have finally started eating them on a regular basis. And I have people to take the excess.

It was funny for us to actally start eating eggs. Before we got the hens a dozen eggs would last a coulple months.

Our cold snap has the chickens quite willing to come inside the coop. Last summer they gave me quite a chase before they would go in the coop.