Where are my eggs?

Lelilamom said:

Earlier this winter our roo was killed by a hawk and a few days later I noticed a significant decrease in egg production by our then 32 hens. Then the cold weather hit, then snow. Then we lost another girl to a hawk a few weeks later, and more snow. By the last snow storm I was lucky to be getting 3 eggs a day out of 31 hens. But the weather improved and the days got longer and we started seeing more eggs. Some days we'd get a whole dozen. Then the hawk returned and the eggs decreased again. The hawk came back four more times, three times I rescued the hen, and but yesterday, I was too late. The last two weeks I've gotten 1 to 3 eggs a day. Some days I don't get any at all. The last two days it's been bitterly cold.

I do see an occasional broken egg shell in the nesting boxes. Yesterday I cleaned the coop and put in fresh hay, laid thickly for extra warm. Today, only one egg, no broken shells, no sticky yolk.

All hens are of laying age ranging from 1 year to 5 years. No one is broody or molting. Coop is unlit and unheated but well insulated, the temp is always 10 degrees higher than outside. I feed them layer pellets and plenty of vegetable scraps as do several of my neighbors. They have three waterers, two 5 gallon and one 3 gallon, all heated.

Is the cold and constant predator attacks to blame? Do I have a very savvy and thorough egg eater? Or is there another explanation?

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bobbi-j said:

There seem to be several factors at play here. One would be the stress of repeated hawk attacks (what are you doing to prevent that? Are they free ranging when this happens? Are you able to pen them in a covered run for awhile to discourage the hawk?) Every time you lose a chicken, the whole dynamic of the flock changes, and chickens don't do change well. They prefer to have things stay the same - forever. Another thing to consider is the ages of your birds. The older ones will naturally decrease in laying from year to year. They may shut down sooner for winter, and take longer to start back up again.

You could possibly have an egg eater. Or, if they free range, they may be laying elsewhere. I'd put golf balls or ceramic eggs in the nest to encourage laying there, and maybe discourage the egg eater. If they free range, wait until late afternoon to let them out (if you have enough room in your coop/run area to keep them locked up for an extended period of time) and watch the ones who take off for points unknown. I've found several hidden nests this way. It never worked for me to obviously follow them, though. I had to watch from a distance to see where they went. I swear they can hold an egg in if they want until they get to their spot and make sure no one is looking! If they're laying out in their range area, keep them cooped for a few days (again, only if you have plenty of room for them, or that's going to cause more problems) to retrain them to lay in the nest boxes.

One winter I had a major decrease in egg production. In the spring I found out why. My coop sat on the ground, had a wooden floor. I did the deep litter method (I didn't even know it had a name at that time!) and went to clean out the coop. There were several holes in the floor, and when I looked down, it was just crawling with rats! Honestly - those brazen little buggers would poke their heads out through the holes to see what I was doing! (Ever play "Bop'em Gopher"? I had my own little version of that going on...) With safely placed poison, we did get rid of the vermin, but to this day, I get ooked out when I think about it. The point of that whole story was that the rats were taking my eggs and eating the feed, and drinking the water.

I also think that major swings in the weather can throw them off. Like I said, they don't do change well. Mine will show a decrease either way - if it suddenly goes from cool extremely hot, and the other way around.

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bobbi-j said:

There seem to be several factors at play here. One would be the stress of repeated hawk attacks (what are you doing to prevent that? Are they free ranging when this happens? Are you able to pen them in a covered run for awhile to discourage the hawk?) Every time you lose a chicken, the whole dynamic of the flock changes, and chickens don't do change well. They prefer to have things stay the same - forever. Another thing to consider is the ages of your birds. The older ones will naturally decrease in laying from year to year. They may shut down sooner for winter, and take longer to start back up again. 

You could possibly have an egg eater. Or, if they free range, they may be laying elsewhere. I'd put golf balls or ceramic eggs in the nest to encourage laying there, and maybe discourage the egg eater. If they free range, wait until late afternoon to let them out (if you have enough room in your coop/run area to keep them locked up for an extended period of time) and watch the ones who take off for points unknown. I've found several hidden nests this way. It never worked for me to obviously follow them, though. I had to watch from a distance to see where they went. I swear they can hold an egg in if they want until they get to their spot and make sure no one is looking! If they're laying out in their range area, keep them cooped for a few days (again, only if you have plenty of room for them, or that's going to cause more problems) to retrain them to lay in the nest boxes. 

One winter I had a major decrease in egg production. In the spring I found out why. My coop sat on the ground, had a wooden floor. I did the deep litter method (I didn't even know it had a name at that time!) and went to clean out the coop. There were several holes in the floor, and when I looked down, it was just crawling with rats! Honestly - those brazen little buggers would poke their heads out through the holes to see what I was doing! (Ever play "Bop'em Gopher"? I had my own little version of that going on...) With safely placed poison, we did get rid of the vermin, but to this day, I get ooked out when I think about it. The point of that whole story was that the rats were taking my eggs and eating the feed, and drinking the water. 

I also think that major swings in the weather can throw them off. Like I said, they don't do change well. Mine will show a decrease either way - if it suddenly goes from cool extremely hot, and the other way around. 

Click to expand...

BIggoMamma said:

Put a light and a battery operated radio in there. They have to be relaxed and the longer the days and daylight the more they lay. Set the radio to talk radio turned up loud, can often repel predators. Get some dollar store solar garden lights and put all around the coop. The outside lights also discourages predators. Shoot predators.

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