hens still not laying!! what am i doing wrong?

Okay so last fall just before winter, my new hens were all starting to lay, then my neighbors dogs came and killed two chickens. after that egg production dropped like crazy. I posted several posts on here and couldn't get them to lay. Eventually i figured out that 24 hour light wasnt good for them and i changed it to 15 hours a day. this helped some but the numbers never went fully back to what they were. Now its JULY! and still they arent laying!! for a while after the lights went to 15 hours a day they started giving me more eggs, but never like it used to be. I figured this was because in february i hatched out lots of chicks and added them to the flock. I had about 80 chickens in all, and was only getting about 10 eggs a day from my 19 laying hens.

So last week friday (9 days ago) We slaughtered a whole wack of birds and now there are only about 47 left, but still egg production has not picked up. Will it maybe take a bit longer to pick up?

Could it be that the perch isnt big enough? I notice that 6 or so hens do not use the perch at night because its not big enough, but they always sit on top of the nest boxes which are just as high as the perch, so i figured it was okay. i saw on youtube that someones hens had stopped laying because some of the birds werent able to perch at night.

everything else seems normal, proper layer feed, free ranging (i thought they were laying in the bush so i kept them in several days and no change) no evidence of egg eating, no disease, no parasites, these chickens started laying last fall, 8 months ago, and then suddenly stopped, some are laying some are not

That is a long time!

I have no idea what happened. It sounds like they are given good care and they should be over the scare of the attack. They aren't crowded in the mornings or anything, right? Could they have some chronic disease? Could they have come from parents with poor genetics? Are predators trying to get in at night and stressing them? Is it really hot out?

I hope they get to laying soon. Must be really expensive to feed them all without getting nearly any eggs.

Best of luck!

Well at first i thought it was due to over crowding, and maybe that it was the older hens that weren't laying. but now that we killed the older hens, we are getting even less eggs! maybe it will just take a bit longer for them to start laying now that there are less chickens?

After loosing half the flock it will usually take 2-3 weeks for them to get comfortable with thier new spot in the pecking order which will slow them down about, also a February hatch would be just coming into lay now, so I would not expect consistent production from them for another 3-4 weeks. My 10 jan hatch started laying 10 days ago, and today is the first time they have all layed at once.