Chickens and Ducks stopped laying eggs

Steve Ducks

In the Brooder
Apr 9, 2021
11
1
34
Hi,

I have 8 ducks and 4 hens that stopped laying eggs when I moved them. I kept them in a grassy dog run (10m x 10m) during the day and a chicken tractor at night until I built a coop/bird run. When I moved them to the coop with 5m X 10m run in the trees, they all stopped laying eggs. We changed food and gave them weeds we pulled but still no eggs. That was over a year ago. Then, I built a fence around the orchard and put the hens in the orchard; then they started laying eggs. Seems something is missing in the duck run in the trees. Any help or ideas is greatly appreciated.
 
I know chickens don’t like change and can stop laying because of change. When you were moving them around, was this also during molting season?
 
When I moved them... they all stopped laying eggs. We changed food and gave them weeds we pulled but still no eggs. That was over a year ago. Then, I built a fence around the orchard and put the hens in the orchard; then they started laying eggs.

How long did they go without laying eggs?
I see they stopped laying over a year ago, and they are laying eggs again now, but it's not clear how long the stop lasted.

They might have been molting (chickens and ducks will often stop laying for several months when they molt.)

Some chickens and some ducks do not lay eggs in the winter at all, so if it was winter, that might be what happened. This is determined by how many hours of daylight they get, not how cold it is. Providing artificial light in the winter can help if this is the cause.

Hens and ducks stop laying eggs when they go broody (sit on eggs to try to hatch them.) This is more common in the spring or summer, but it tends to be obvious (because they are all sitting around on nests instead of walking around like usual.) So I think you would have noticed if this was the cause.

They might have been laying, but something happened to the eggs. They could have eaten the eggs (often caused by boredom, or not enough protein in the diet.) Some animal could have been eating the eggs. A person could have been stealing the eggs, although I think that is less likely-- a human thief would probably not start or stop just because you moved the chickens to a different pen.

There could be other causes of them not laying, but I think it was most likely one of these, considering what you described.
 

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