And then there were nine

[BBsChicks]

Hello fellow chicken peeps,
I have been tending chickens for 7 1/2 years. I started with 6, of those I still have 2; Lucy (Rhode Island Red) and Ethel (Buff). They don't lay anymore but they are happy matriarchs.
Two years ago I got 4 babies ~ two Ameraucanas; Thelma and Louise and a Cochin, Grace and a Cuckoo Maran, Frankie.
I was offered 5 chickens by a new friend that needed to move. By the transfer day there were only 3 left. They are a Wyandotte, Abby, a buff, Ellie, and another Ameraucana, Ziva. They acclimated smoothly and I feel proud and blessed.
Now to the weird part. Out of 7 laying chickens I have only found 4 eggs in 4 days. Frankie normally lays an egg almost every day but she stopped. Grace was every other day but nothing. I found the little girls' eggs under bushes and in the tent (for yard stuff).
Is it normal for chickens to stop laying just because we introduced new birds to the flock?
Lucy, Ethel, Thelma and Louise, Grace and Frankie, Abby, Ziva and Ellie and their tender, BB

 

[Folly's place]

Any stress can stop or slow down egg production, and adding new flock members is a very big deal for all of them. Time will improve things. Also, it's molting time, and reduced daylight slows or stops laying. Do you have a light on a timer out there? The hens want fourteen to sixteen hours of light daily to maintain egg production.
Mary

 

[Melky]

Welcome! Any times of stress may cause decreased egg production but we are also in the fall as daylight hours decrease and when molting occurs. Egg production can cease all together. Also your birds sound like they are older when production each year naturally slows down. Sufficient protein, poultry grit, and oyster shell just make sure. Just wait and watch otherwise.

 

[BullChick]

I’m sure you know it after all this time, but I’m asking just in case you don’t. Did you remember to quarantine? We can go for years without doing it, then BAM! The new girls had a dormant ailment that wipes out the whole flock. Or, they had mites.

 

[BBsChicks]

I’m sure you know it after all this time, but I’m asking just in case you don’t. Did you remember to quarantine? We can go for years without doing it, then BAM! The new girls had a dormant ailment that wipes out the whole flock. Or, they had mites.

Yep, they're good. No mites, the new girls are as clean as the original residents. Funny thing, they had been sort of grouping themselves, 6 older and 3 younger, then a fighter jet did a fly by twice (we are not on a flight path) and now they are a cluster of 9