Chickens just stopped laying

[kdr2171]

I have just 8 chickens, wyandottes and easter eggers. The wyandottes just started laying eggs about 3 weeks ago and have not layed a single egg in about 4 days. Is this normal? Am I doing something wrong? What can I do to reverse this? Thanks for the help.

Keith

 

[Chickie Mamma]

Hello, winter is here in CT, mine aren't laying either.

 

[portlandpeeps]

no eggs here since august so i don't think you want my advice, but we can commiserate.

my 7 month old cochin laid 2 eggs before she went broody and hasn't laid since. the wyandotte is 8 months old and hasn't laid an egg yet. the other 2 hens are a year and a half and went on strike in august. there's been some molting going on and then the cold weather arrived. could be a number of things like that going on with yours.

as far as reversing the non-egg laying behavior, let me know when you find something that works. i'm trying golf balls in the nest boxes this week.

also welcome to BYC. you'll receive lots of advice here.

 

[Chickie Mamma]

I am going to try the golf balls too this week. Have you tried a light to make the day longer. It hasn't worked with mine yet, but its worth a try.

 

[Wood's Farm]

I am in sunny southern california and both of my EE went on strike last week. I am still getting an egg a day from the others but the EE just stopped completely. It is not that cold either, lows in the high 40's. I think they just start and stop whenever they feel like it.

I leave the other chickens eggs in the box for a day before I pick them up and this way I always have eggs in there to try to induce their egg laying. Doesn't seem to work but it was worth a shot.

I think the answer to everyones problem is to just get more hens! It make sense, the more hens you have, the better the chance is that someone will be laying.

 

[kdr2171]

Thanks! I will see what happens in the next few days. I have a light on until around 9 or 10pm, then i keep a heat lamp on all night. Im paranoid they will freeze!

 

[kristenm1975]

Hey kdr2171, mine stopped laying a few months ago too. I have a lot of different types: turken, wyandotte, barred rocks, australorp, cochin, easter eggers, Sicilian buttercup, red sexlink, silkie x, etc and they all just quit.

Since I was still obviously paying for all that feed, I didn't want to be also having to buy eggs (store-bought eggs...

). I tired adding a light, but I didn't have a timer yet, just turned it off and on when I could remember to do so. Predictably, it didn't induce any egg-laying, just a coop-wide molt. Sigh.

I got the light on a timer and two more weeks passed with just one brave bird laying daily. I added hot mash in the morning with meat and veggies mixed in. Two days later, I went from one egg to 4. It's been a week and I've been giving hot mash each day and I'm up to 5 eggs a day.

Maybe try that!

 

[Wynette]

As the daylight hours wane, so does the egg-laying. It's nature's way of giving them a break. Some folks choose to add light to aritifically extend the day so they keep laying...it's up to you if you want to do that or not. I personally don't like to mess with mother nature in that regard. You'll always have a few that will lay through winter. I found that for my breeds, if I wanted eggs through winter, I'd need to add a few sex links to do so. I did that, and am getting eggs each day now. I'll wait another few months until it picks up again from my regular girls. In the meantime, my sex links are doing a fine job keeping me in eggs!