Chicken troubleshooting

[sabine]

Hello all I need some advice

I had my backyard chickens for about a year and half now and have some questions.

I have one Dorking, two Welsumers and one mixed breed the did lay green eggs once upon a time.

One of the girls (the mix) started laying some eggs about a year ago for about 6 weeks, then went broody. I kept chasing her of the nest and after a week or so she stopped sitting. She has never produced another egg since. She appears healthy, eats like a horse, is very noisy and doesn't have any parasites that I can see.

The other 3 did lay well (about 4 per week each)until about 4 weeks ago. But since then it's getting less and less and I'm lucky if I get 4 eggs a week from all of them.

I did have a red mite infestation in the coop that I treated and that since has gone.
Also noticed that there a lot more feathers around the run but the girls don't look as scruffy as I have seen chickens that are molting.
They are also seem to be picking on one of them recently, something I never noticed before.

I'm feeding 18% free range crumbles plus lots of veggie scraps.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks
Sabine
Nanaimo, BC, Canada

 

[ChicKat]

Hi Sabine and WELCOME!!

Although I don't have much expertise, and I suspect that you, being in Canada don't have the heat that we have----but that may be somewhat relevant to what your chickens are used to, right now I point to heat as the culprit for reduced laying.

Mine have just gone down in production in the last two days. I suspect that it is heat-related, and I have been expecting it. (Today I got only one egg from 3 hens, but heat index today was 110 and actual temp was 103)


You may want to deworm them on general principles, and eliminate internal parasites from you diagnosis list. Have they molted at all? It seems that the timing with their ages and the time of year would be about correct. It could be that they are molting slowly and so don't look as rough as you expect, and if you combine several things, it could add up to your reduction in getting eggs.

Strange about your mixed breed....maybe it is a hormonal thing.

Hope that your answer will appear here and your hens start to perform as you expect.

 

[sabine]

Thanks ChicKat

it's not very hot here, about 20-25C (68-77F)

They have not molted at all since I had them.

Sabine

 

[sabine]

Any thoughts about the one that doesn't lay at all?

Sabine