Good morning y'all, I hope everyone is enjoying this Sunday morning! I have a flock of seven at the moment which are
Nobody sleeps in the nesting boxes. All three boxes are clean and ready for eggs. I've tried putting wooden training eggs in there but that didn't do anything. I think the pullets might be exploring the boxes because I found one wooden egg on the ground so somebody was in there and kicked it out. I also see where someone has been pushing the bedding around as if she was going to lay, but no egg to be found.
I do not see any evidence of broken eggs. I would expect if my girls, roo or another critter were eating the eggs that I would at least see a wet spot from the yolk breaking.
All of them get to go out and spend a few hours roaming around each afternoon. They'll usually eventually roam over to a neighbor's place, those people are all cool with (and actually enjoy) my chickens coming over and I think they sometimes get a treat or two from the neighbors. I do know they sometimes enjoy some starfruit from the tree over there LOL. I've asked neighbors to limit the treats.
Food & water available all day, every day. Food now comes in at night as above and I put the feeder back out there each morning. I just bought a new four-port feeder because I noticed my roo was having trouble fitting his head into the old four-port feeder, so the new one has larger ports.
Footprint of coop + run is roughly 10' x 14' with a mix of sun and shade.
What say the experts on here? Help me out chicken crew! I'm not ready to give up on those two quite yet but am running out of ideas. Hopefully the pullets will begin laying as expected.
I did read the sticky on egg-laying and the article linked from within. Does my situation sound stressful for the girls?
- four pullets around 20 weeks old
- a mutt of a rooster who's probably around a year old. Don't know for sure, he was given to me.
- two 1.75 year old Easter Eggers that currently do not Easter Egg. Something disabled their egg laying and I haven't yet been able to find out what. They quit laying about six weeks ago but unfortunately there is not one clear change because around that time frame:
- Rooster was given to me, he took to the girls quickly and although a bit horny in the mornings he does his roosterly duties well; helping his girls to find tasty morsels and alerting them to those pesky hawks. He does crow before the crack of dawn but usually stops after about ten minutes. I wonder if that is interrupting their sleep?
- One or more rats started invading the coop at night. I was finding rat droppings in the nesting boxes and on one occasion in their feeder as well. I began bringing in the feeder at night and haven't seen any evidence of rats for the past two weeks.
- A hurricane. I've never had my chickens get stressed out and go off lay from riding out a hurricane so that's probably not it but I figured I'd mention it.
- A diet change. My hens used to eat layer pellets and when the pullets went out to live with the big girls, I switched them all to starter/grower. Also my understanding is that roosters should not eat layer feed either. Their feeder currently has a 25/75 ratio of layer pellets to starter/grower, when that is gone I will switch them to all-flock. I had been putting oyster shells out for the two that should be laying (Easter Eggers) just throwing a couple handfuls out in the run but currently I'm just giving them the remaining layer pellets as stated above.
Nobody sleeps in the nesting boxes. All three boxes are clean and ready for eggs. I've tried putting wooden training eggs in there but that didn't do anything. I think the pullets might be exploring the boxes because I found one wooden egg on the ground so somebody was in there and kicked it out. I also see where someone has been pushing the bedding around as if she was going to lay, but no egg to be found.
I do not see any evidence of broken eggs. I would expect if my girls, roo or another critter were eating the eggs that I would at least see a wet spot from the yolk breaking.
All of them get to go out and spend a few hours roaming around each afternoon. They'll usually eventually roam over to a neighbor's place, those people are all cool with (and actually enjoy) my chickens coming over and I think they sometimes get a treat or two from the neighbors. I do know they sometimes enjoy some starfruit from the tree over there LOL. I've asked neighbors to limit the treats.
Food & water available all day, every day. Food now comes in at night as above and I put the feeder back out there each morning. I just bought a new four-port feeder because I noticed my roo was having trouble fitting his head into the old four-port feeder, so the new one has larger ports.
Footprint of coop + run is roughly 10' x 14' with a mix of sun and shade.
What say the experts on here? Help me out chicken crew! I'm not ready to give up on those two quite yet but am running out of ideas. Hopefully the pullets will begin laying as expected.
I did read the sticky on egg-laying and the article linked from within. Does my situation sound stressful for the girls?
