- Feb 18, 2013
- 6
- 0
- 7
Hi,
First off i have browsing your forums for a long long time (but never posted except to say hi when i first signed up) but still only have a vague idea of why my hens have stopped laying. i just wondered if any of you guys would back up what i'm thinking.
Originally i had 2 warren hens in a crappy little £80 coop/run i bought from the internet that apparently could house 6 large hens...
That was a mistake believing the manufacterers so i quickly knocked up a small run to give them the bare minimum space available. The 2 hens layed daily without fail but i still felt guilty they didnt have much space (about 22 square feet in the run). I managed to get hold of an 8x6 shed cheap so took it home, repaired it, cleaned it up, new lats where the old was rotted etc and re-felted it. it was whitewashed inside, perches installed, nest boxes installed and generally made quite fit for a king!. on the outside i built a 110 square foot run (footprint) with different floor levels, perches, a covered area with wood shavings, an area with grass which is now dirt and some old tyres in there filled with sand for dust bathing in (which they seem to love). it was then i decided i had room for more hens so i bought 8 more warrens and put them with my other 2. there was a bit of bickering which sorted itself out within 4 - 5 days but almost 7 weeks later my 2 older girls still haven't layed since moving them to the shed. The 8 new hens arent quite old enough to be laying yet anyway.
There is plenty of ventilation / no draughts.
Plenty of room,
2 seperate feeders / waterers so they werent fighting over the food / water.
4 nest boxes,
No sign of bugs / mites
No sign of moulting.
No sign of any illness i can see.
The 2 older girls will be about 10 months now too.
The weather has been fantastic here too so far, nice long sunny (but not too hot) days.
The only reasons i can think of are that the nest boxes are opposite the window so not dark or really private, the new hens and the move have stressed my older 2 girls out (but i would have thought they'd be ok by now) and a fox regularly patrols the bottom of our garden along the outside of the chicken shed and that maybe they heard this and were bothered about predators?.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, even if its just to put my mind at rest and that everything is ok and will eventually go back to normal.
Thanks for your time and reading my post...
Nrodor.
First off i have browsing your forums for a long long time (but never posted except to say hi when i first signed up) but still only have a vague idea of why my hens have stopped laying. i just wondered if any of you guys would back up what i'm thinking.
Originally i had 2 warren hens in a crappy little £80 coop/run i bought from the internet that apparently could house 6 large hens...
That was a mistake believing the manufacterers so i quickly knocked up a small run to give them the bare minimum space available. The 2 hens layed daily without fail but i still felt guilty they didnt have much space (about 22 square feet in the run). I managed to get hold of an 8x6 shed cheap so took it home, repaired it, cleaned it up, new lats where the old was rotted etc and re-felted it. it was whitewashed inside, perches installed, nest boxes installed and generally made quite fit for a king!. on the outside i built a 110 square foot run (footprint) with different floor levels, perches, a covered area with wood shavings, an area with grass which is now dirt and some old tyres in there filled with sand for dust bathing in (which they seem to love). it was then i decided i had room for more hens so i bought 8 more warrens and put them with my other 2. there was a bit of bickering which sorted itself out within 4 - 5 days but almost 7 weeks later my 2 older girls still haven't layed since moving them to the shed. The 8 new hens arent quite old enough to be laying yet anyway.
There is plenty of ventilation / no draughts.
Plenty of room,
2 seperate feeders / waterers so they werent fighting over the food / water.
4 nest boxes,
No sign of bugs / mites
No sign of moulting.
No sign of any illness i can see.
The 2 older girls will be about 10 months now too.
The weather has been fantastic here too so far, nice long sunny (but not too hot) days.
The only reasons i can think of are that the nest boxes are opposite the window so not dark or really private, the new hens and the move have stressed my older 2 girls out (but i would have thought they'd be ok by now) and a fox regularly patrols the bottom of our garden along the outside of the chicken shed and that maybe they heard this and were bothered about predators?.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated, even if its just to put my mind at rest and that everything is ok and will eventually go back to normal.
Thanks for your time and reading my post...
Nrodor.
