Without knowing the specific breed, 7/8 months is still a little early. Need longer days too, she came of age in the darkest daylight season. Add light up to 12 hours a day should help.
Good luck.
Bet they have a heck-of-a-time gettin those wolves and coyotes to pee in a bottle :gig
On a serious note, 'coons hibernate in December January and February, so once they get to sleepin you should be ok. Do you have cats you feed on your porch? If yes, they may be content to live on catfood...
Egg laying is very breed specific as noted above.
Also, longer daylight hours, or artificial light, can help with production.
That said, can you remove the two hens from the roo pen?
I would try that next.
Is your incubator wafer or solid-state?
I have a wafer incubator and it reacts to barometric pressures too much. I now use banty hens exclusively to hatch.
If its a wafer incubator, check barometric pressures last 3 weeks, maybe you had a spike.
Also, what is the fertility/hatch rate of eggs...
Should be fine.
I use banty hens to brood my eggs and I am always amazed at the time they spend off the eggs and then how successful hatch is.
So, I learned a while back to just let them do the broody thing their way, not my way.
Good luck with the hatch.
Broody hens are awesome.
Jenna I had leghorns a while back, both brown and white ones. They were very flighty and nervous birds, good layers though. And they were mean to the other chickens, we only had them that one time and prefer heavier birds for wintering over.
As always, good luck with your birds when you get them.
I sent to our local TSC today just to check inventory to post here. Only one bin was marked, the RIR bin. They had 4 other breeds, but none was marked except the RIR. Probably varies store to store just how well they handle chicks.
Has anyone said, "caveat emptor" ?
I would hesitate to buy chicks from a store, as opposed to a hatchery.
I have purchased from store, but smaller mom-and-pop feed stores not chain stores.
Good luck whatever you decide.
My concern would be that the feather loss you are attributing to molt might be vermin related.
That's a long time to molt.
Try increasing protein in feed, dust and worm also.
Just a suggestion, mites happen.
Good luck with a positive solution.
Keep them warm and draft free
They need water and food if they are 3 days old. You may have to dip their beaks in the water and food.
They could have been on the edge of the clutch and gotten a chill in the egg while developing and hatching. That was a large set of eggs.
Hope it works out for...