big decrease in egg production

[mudchicken]

i am really puzzled with my flock, even a little worried. have 4 leghorns and 4 nhr's. i also have 7 bantams that are not yet laying eggs, im not worried about them. im worried about the standards.
I used to get 4 or 5 eggs a day from all of them. once i even got 6. now the past few weeks its like someone turned off the light switch. very few eggs. usualy none, or sometimes one or two. what is really wierd is the leghorn eggs instead of having a bright white appearance instead now have a greyish tint to them, and are shaped wierd. what could be happening? i feed them a mix on feed. 2/3 is layer feed 16 or 18% i forget what, and 1/3 scratch mix. i mix in grit and about a month ago started giving them oyster shells mixed in with the feed. they always have fresh water. i usualy give them a handfull of BOSS, and sometimes give them scraps or veggies from the garden. sunrise is about 6:30 and sunset is about 8:30. please help me out. thanks.
John

 

[Choco Maran]

They are young and still getting all sytems to go. I have also heard never to feed scratch in the summer as it can overheat them. Give them a chance to regulate. Also change in season coming. My new flock is going on 16 weeks right now and they are molting like you would not beleive. Looks like a war zone in there coop. My old flock all at 1 years old are also molting so I went from about 40 eggs a day to around 6-10 a day in the last month. I hope they get going again some myself. I know it is hard but you just have to wait it out. As for the weird shaped eggs it could be that they are young or they are just getting to hot.

 

[CuddleBug Ranch]

I am having the same problem with my flock of 15 hens. 8 of the hens have been laying, and the remaining seven haven't begun yet. I've gone from 6-7 eggs a day to one or two. Is it due to the cooler temperatures? Or could it be that they need deworming? I know in Juner when the egg production dropped off, my local Feed Store had me deworm my chickens and right after that, they started laying again like crazy. I've only had chickens since May and have 1 1/2 year old Rhode Island Reds and 1 year old Black Australorps and this years chicks Black Australorps along with three of this years chicks of olive egger chickens. The eggs that I am getting appear to be the Black Australorps as they are a little bit smaller and lighter in color than the ones from the RIR's. Again only getting 1-2 a day compared to the 6-8 I was getting about two weeks ago.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[mudchicken]

Quote:
you probably are right. they were hatched beginning of april. i dont think the heat is getting to them, has been easily over 90 this summer and now struggles to get over 70. is it too earily for a molt or not? thats another thing i was wondering. the eggs really are wierd. every single leghorn egg has been a grayish color. im lucky to get 1 or 2 rir eggs a week. thanks for the help guys

 

[sourland]

Many birds are in the molt now. The decreasing day length may be a big factor. You can try adding artificial lighting to increase the day length.

 

[teach1rusl]

Yep...I agree with sourland. If you're finding lots of feathers around, they are most likely going through a molt...tis the season and all that. And the days are getting shorter...less light always affects eggs.
Also, I would cut back BIG TIME on the scratch. Scratch should only make up maybe 10% of what they eat in a day. A third is a LOT. Scratch is like candy bars, and you wouldn't want your kids food intake a day to be made of 1/3 candy bars and other junk food. And I wouldn't mix it in with their feed. They will literally dig through the feed (wasting) to find the scratch like a kid digging through spinach to find the snickers bars. Just tossing a handful of scratch around on the ground once or twice a day is plenty of scratch, especially since they're not laying well. It takes protein to make eggs (and it takes protein to make feathers), so I would elimate non-protein food items for a while, at least until things get back on track. BOSS and other high protein snacks would be okay, but stick with the layer feed. You don't need to mix in oyster shell either...just put a small dish of that out and they will eat as needed.

 

[bbRedMom]

I was about to post about the same problem! I have about 40-45 chickens. 1 rooster, and all ages ranging from over a year to three months. I was getting almost 20 eggs a day for a while, but as the weather got hotter, and the pullets grew older and started laying, my production is down to barely a dozen a day. And none of my blue or green egg layers are laying any more. The chickens are all healthy and happy, clear eyes and sinuses, with free-fed oyster and layer feed. No scratch at all, and we let them out to free range about 1-2 times a week when we can keep and eye on them.

They have two laying boxes-should we build them more? With my previous flock of 15, I had four boxes, and they all insisted on laying in two of them.


I have noticed more feathers. Maybe they are molting?

 

[chickie63]

Okay everyone says to treat my youngster for cocci due to blood in poos . I have jsut spent 1 hr online trying to findit. Harkes brands will not sell to me ( out of their okayed countries I guess. so where do i get it. I her it is important to get it into my birds right away soo please HELP? chickie62