8 mo old hens never started laying

[WhetzelMomma]

@twestover It just occurred to me that some people might mistake a lower than hen count egg count as one of the hens not laying? I have 12 hens, and very rarely get 12 eggs every day. It may be that your hen IS laying, but that not all your hens are laying everyday. Just a thought, but it may also be the breed. Sometimes different breeds start laying later. I don't think it's time to start worrying yet. It's nearly impossible to tell who is laying what most of the time. EXCEPT for my Americana. She lays green.

@danischi24 lol 18 hours. That makes MUCH more sense. I bet you're right, and that's what she meant. Still not natural for a year long season, but I totally understand why people might choose that route.

 

[Yay Chicks!]

Should we worry?

If there's a choice between worrying and not worrying, I would go for the not worrying.

Seriously though, the more I read, the more I learn that there are more normal things than abnormal things when it comes to chicken behaviors.​

 

[HHandbasket]

I just found this thread and looked at your pics. I agree with others that your birds are not as old as you were told they were.

The EXACT same thing happened to us. We got our pullets toward the end of May and were told they were all 3 months except for the EE (sold to us as a "pure ameraucana") which was supposedly "almost 4 months in a week or so". We were told we would have eggs from some in July, some in August. I also shared pics of my birds with the folks here who helped me figure out that my pullets were closer to only 6-8 weeks old when I got them, save for the EE who was closer to 10-12 weeks (they have been here 20 weeks now). As of right now, the only one laying is the leghorn. Based on her maturity and what I know now about chicken development, she was probably right at 6-7 weeks when she came here and was right at 21 weeks when she started to lay.

Do you live anywhere near me? Maybe we bought our birds from the same shady character. LOL.