6 months, no eggs from 18 month old chicken

[lafemmeale]

I have an 18 month old BR that seems to be a hypochondriac. Early spring she decided to go broody, then she started eating her eggs while broody. I broke her of both the broodyness & the egg eating late spring, then this late summer she molted. She's now back to normal, but I haven't gotten an egg out of her for at least 6 months. AND I have an EE hen who's 2 years old who also quit laying this summer, about 2 months ago. What could be causing this? My other 2 are still laying normally... none of them are acting sick or lethargic. I'll be butchering turkeys for thanksgiving this year and may bring these two with me if I can't figure out the problem soon! I miss eggs!

 

[CMV]

It takes a while after a molt to get back to regular laying.

That being said- I'd do a bug check on them straight away. Last year I had the same thing happen. I figured my birds weren't laying because of the molt, and then because of the shortened days of winter. Soon enough I figured out they had a horrific case of mites, and that's why they weren't laying. I cleaned up the mites and the day after the first treatment I got an egg. The day after that I got 4 eggs. If you check them and they don't have any bugs, then I'd check for worms. If a worm scan appears clean then you need to decide if you want to have the poop checked at your local vet under a scope to be certain there are not worms. If no worms then I'd be looking at their feed.

During and directly after a heavy molt an increase in protein may be needed. I'd maybe add some protein in the form of grower feed instead of layer feed. You can add free-choice oyster shells to make up for any lack of calcium in the feed. BOSS, yogurt, scrambled eggs, bits of meat left over from your dinner table, and cat food in limited quantities are also good protein sources.

If all these checks and balances still don't lead to egg-laying I'd look at culling them. Some would also add supplemental lighting to augment the short days of sunlight, but I don't use supplemental lighting, myself.

Good luck with them.