I have a pretty lavender-beige laced EE with accents of dark grey named Midge that I hatched & she is currently 30 weeks old. She is quite a petite little thing (inbetween standard 5-6lb sized and bantam sized). In our flock of 4 hens she is #2 rank in the pecking order with only our barred rock above her.
She began laying at 23 weeks and laid green eggs roughly every 2nd to 4th day which I expected being that I heard younger hens will lay irregularly in the beginning. She laid for about 3 weeks then totally stopped and hasn't laid in a good 4 weeks at all! We haven't changed anything in her environment that could cause stress. She has access to layer pellet feed all day/night minus 2 to 4 hours-ish when she is in a tractor free ranging on new ground each day (super light weight tractor I only use when at home where I can keep an eye on them...they have water in the tractor all the time). I give her a tiny amount of treats a day consisting of a few mealworms or some boiled egg already taken out of the shell so as not to give the girls any ideas about eggs! She has access to oyster grit and granite grit too, and gets lots of fresh greens like dandelion, grass, etc when free ranging. The rest of the time the girls are in a run or their coop minus a few hours of tractor time. Water access 24/7.
No signs of illness. I isolated the only pullet of the 4 of them named Freckles that hasn't begun laying yet (she is a regular sized hatchery bought EE and lowest on pecking order and is 26 weeks old) for almost a week to see if she was possibly eating eggs since she tends to be a pest around the girls when they lay sometimes. I found no evidence though that anyone was eating eggs and put Freckles back with the rest of the flock. I did some hip measurements on Midge to see if maybe she stopped laying due to issues with her body. She is smaller in size like I had mentioned before (like 3 to 4lbs), and has a good 3 fingerwidths between pubic bones, and 4 from chest bone to vent like she should, but her abdomen isn't quite as soft and round as the other laying girls. Her vent seemed to have shrunk a bit since I had last checked her just before she began laying...so I think she isn't laying eggs and isn't eating them. My barred rock and gold sex links' eggs have been coming every day and none of them have been cracked or eaten.
Midge has no signs of illness or other issues. They always have clean water with some ACV added and Midge drinks plenty; just fine like the others. She is my favorite chicken since she is smart and affectionate.
Is this normal for EE's (esp more likely with ones hatched from fertile eggs from a small farm instead of a breeder or hatchery)? Midge is currently 30 weeks old. Is she just not the best specimen when it comes to laying so keeping her would be mainly for her personality? Or do I need to give her more time being an EE? Anything else I can do/add to get her laying again?
THANK YOU for the help!
She began laying at 23 weeks and laid green eggs roughly every 2nd to 4th day which I expected being that I heard younger hens will lay irregularly in the beginning. She laid for about 3 weeks then totally stopped and hasn't laid in a good 4 weeks at all! We haven't changed anything in her environment that could cause stress. She has access to layer pellet feed all day/night minus 2 to 4 hours-ish when she is in a tractor free ranging on new ground each day (super light weight tractor I only use when at home where I can keep an eye on them...they have water in the tractor all the time). I give her a tiny amount of treats a day consisting of a few mealworms or some boiled egg already taken out of the shell so as not to give the girls any ideas about eggs! She has access to oyster grit and granite grit too, and gets lots of fresh greens like dandelion, grass, etc when free ranging. The rest of the time the girls are in a run or their coop minus a few hours of tractor time. Water access 24/7.
No signs of illness. I isolated the only pullet of the 4 of them named Freckles that hasn't begun laying yet (she is a regular sized hatchery bought EE and lowest on pecking order and is 26 weeks old) for almost a week to see if she was possibly eating eggs since she tends to be a pest around the girls when they lay sometimes. I found no evidence though that anyone was eating eggs and put Freckles back with the rest of the flock. I did some hip measurements on Midge to see if maybe she stopped laying due to issues with her body. She is smaller in size like I had mentioned before (like 3 to 4lbs), and has a good 3 fingerwidths between pubic bones, and 4 from chest bone to vent like she should, but her abdomen isn't quite as soft and round as the other laying girls. Her vent seemed to have shrunk a bit since I had last checked her just before she began laying...so I think she isn't laying eggs and isn't eating them. My barred rock and gold sex links' eggs have been coming every day and none of them have been cracked or eaten.
Midge has no signs of illness or other issues. They always have clean water with some ACV added and Midge drinks plenty; just fine like the others. She is my favorite chicken since she is smart and affectionate.
Is this normal for EE's (esp more likely with ones hatched from fertile eggs from a small farm instead of a breeder or hatchery)? Midge is currently 30 weeks old. Is she just not the best specimen when it comes to laying so keeping her would be mainly for her personality? Or do I need to give her more time being an EE? Anything else I can do/add to get her laying again?
THANK YOU for the help!
