I have a black giant, two R.I. reds, and a barred rock that are 26 weeks old and I still don't have any eggs. I have a nesting box built with 4 nests. Also they share the coop with several other birds, but most are young. I am afraid one of them are eating eggs. So I have two questions. One, should I expect to get eggs from these hens. Two, how do I go about proving if and who is eating the eggs. Please help!
Your hens should be laying a few eggs by now. Are you feeding laying mash? I would separate the younger ones with a temp barricade and see what happens. Did you find any egg shells as that would be a sign they are laying.
They should be laying . My guess is, someone is either eating the eggs or they have a place where they are hiding them. To find out for sure you either have to watch them or put up a camera. I also have golf balls in my nest boxes.
I am sure they are not hiding them. I do feed laying mash, with scratch grains mixed in. I also feed them a lot of food out of the garden. They get out of the coop, at a min., 10 hours a week. So i know they are getting plenty of grass and bugs. I've been thinking about they golf ball thing, I'll let you know. And NO i haven't found any egg shells. Thank you for the advice. If you have anymore I would love to hear it.
If the hens were eating the eggs you would see evidence. My guess is you may have a snake eating the eggs. Golf balls or wooden eggs in the nest boxes will serve two purposes - to let the hens know "lay here", and to kill the snake, since they will eat the wooden egg and die. There are several posts about how to deter snakes in the Predators and Pests forum.
