So, you will forgive any typos as my fingers are slippery from the sweat produced from 2 hours of doing the "lay an egg" dance. Yes, an old, Cherokee dance I learned from a guy right down the road...in Cherokee. Strangely enough I had driven my Cherokee there...to meet a Cherokee in Cherokee. Ah well, I digress...
Just a little background info...had a flock, got some new birds...introduced to old flock. New flock all nearly 23 weeks now. 1 has begun laying. The 2 that began laying 2 days before we got them, stopped after laying 2 eggs, and haven't started back up. They have a big new coop/run, that is cleaned out every day by a really obsessive OCD owner. They are on good layer feed, and get "some" treats, though not enough to throw off the internal laying mechanisms. They get to free range every day after noonish. They are happy, they like to jump up on my lap and hang out. But no eggs. No freakin' eggs (from these 5). Now one of them, the Brahma, I hear matures late, and also she had a little illness thingy so she is TOTALLY excused from the whole egg laying thing. But the other 3....oh yes, those 3....a BO (who laid first two days, nothing since), a Speckled Sussex (who laid first two days, nothing since), and an SLW (never laid). Those 3 are in some big trouble...
I have switched most treats to high protein, thinking that would help. Even read some crazy old theories, about sprinkling red pepper flakes into their food, which, from what I can tell, went completely unnoticed. I hang out with them, and talk to them. Long talks...politics, religion, how their cousin tasted last night broiled....but no...no eggs.
So off I went in search of ancient advice. That's the whole, "in my Cherokee, to Cherokee, to meet a Cherokee" annoying thing from above...
And just today, I wrapped my belly (it shakes) tightly in a very nice purple indian blanket (just a note...they really make some nice blankets over there...really nice...), put on my sandles, and began my dance. I think it was about 20 minutes into it when I realized that rather being moved into egg laying trance, they had all been distracted by a tiny moth that couldn't find it's way out of the chain link run. This was not going well. So I got louder. Then I tripped over a chair and decided I had worked up an appetite and here I am.
So, since I've tried everything I, and the Cherokee nation could think of to get my happy chickens laying again....are there any others out there with similar experiences, stressing their chickens from a move just as they begin to lay, stopping the process? How long did it last? Do you have a better dance for me to try?
Just a little background info...had a flock, got some new birds...introduced to old flock. New flock all nearly 23 weeks now. 1 has begun laying. The 2 that began laying 2 days before we got them, stopped after laying 2 eggs, and haven't started back up. They have a big new coop/run, that is cleaned out every day by a really obsessive OCD owner. They are on good layer feed, and get "some" treats, though not enough to throw off the internal laying mechanisms. They get to free range every day after noonish. They are happy, they like to jump up on my lap and hang out. But no eggs. No freakin' eggs (from these 5). Now one of them, the Brahma, I hear matures late, and also she had a little illness thingy so she is TOTALLY excused from the whole egg laying thing. But the other 3....oh yes, those 3....a BO (who laid first two days, nothing since), a Speckled Sussex (who laid first two days, nothing since), and an SLW (never laid). Those 3 are in some big trouble...
I have switched most treats to high protein, thinking that would help. Even read some crazy old theories, about sprinkling red pepper flakes into their food, which, from what I can tell, went completely unnoticed. I hang out with them, and talk to them. Long talks...politics, religion, how their cousin tasted last night broiled....but no...no eggs.
So off I went in search of ancient advice. That's the whole, "in my Cherokee, to Cherokee, to meet a Cherokee" annoying thing from above...
And just today, I wrapped my belly (it shakes) tightly in a very nice purple indian blanket (just a note...they really make some nice blankets over there...really nice...), put on my sandles, and began my dance. I think it was about 20 minutes into it when I realized that rather being moved into egg laying trance, they had all been distracted by a tiny moth that couldn't find it's way out of the chain link run. This was not going well. So I got louder. Then I tripped over a chair and decided I had worked up an appetite and here I am.
So, since I've tried everything I, and the Cherokee nation could think of to get my happy chickens laying again....are there any others out there with similar experiences, stressing their chickens from a move just as they begin to lay, stopping the process? How long did it last? Do you have a better dance for me to try?
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