Buff Orpington Stopped Laying Suddenly

[MaggieRose2001]

Hi,

My Buff Orpington, Alice, stopped laying a few days ago. Is this normal? She is about 11 months old. She has been laying throughout the winter and has always been pretty consistent. Then suddenly she hasn't laid in 4 days. She doesn't show any signs of being egg bound. My chickens were eating chick crumbles because they hadn't all started laying yet - one holdout taking her dear sweet time. When their bag of crumbles ran out I bought layer pellets about a week ago. Would that have something to do with it? It's been really cold in Maine, and the weather just got above 40 about 2 weeks ago - does weather play a part? I am new to raising chickens - will they go through phases and have times when they don't lay and is that normal? I chart all of my chickens egg laying and so I know their schedule really well. My partridge Cochin, Clementine, will lay for 3 weeks in a row before taking a day off - poor thing! =)

Anyway - I attached a visual of her laying schedule for the past couple weeks.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Weather plays almost no part. Day length does.
It is important to remember chickens are individual animals that feed us breakfast, not egg machines. Egg laying isn't always consistent.
There are so many causes of that but unless you manage like commercial egg farms, control day length and meticulously regulate nutrition, you can't get a great deal of consistency,
Unless something else is going on, days are getting longer at a dramatic pace so laying should resume very soon.

 

[MaggieRose2001]

Weather plays almost no part. Day length does.
It is important to remember chickens are individual animals that feed us breakfast, not egg machines. Egg laying isn't always consistent.
There are so many causes of that but unless you manage like commercial egg farms, control day length and meticulously regulate nutrition, you can't get a great deal of consistency,
Unless something else is going on, days are getting longer at a dramatic pace so laying should resume very soon.

Thank you for the information. I just wanted to make sure it was normal and that I shouldn’t be concerned. We get way more eggs than we need and give a lot of them to neighbors - so I’m not concerned about egg production as much as health and happiness. Thanks again.

 

[aart]

When their bag of crumbles ran out I bought layer pellets about a week ago. Would that have something to do with it?

It might, but she'll adjust - give it time.