Chickens not laying...

[DBLakeChickens]

I have 13 chickens: 1 full-size rooster, 2 bantam roosters, 9 full-size hens and 1 bantam hen. Six of them are about 5 weeks older than the other seven. We ferment their organic feed, and add DE to both their bedding and sometimes to their food. We also feed them lentil sprouts we grow and wild grapes from the vines in the back yard. When the older hens were about 16 weeks, two of them started laying the same day; we believe it was the barred rock and the easter egger. This continued for a week, and then only one egg per day from the barred rock. The barred rock was the only one who used the egg box... about three or four weeks later we got an egg from the brabanter. That was followed by another two days later... The next week we found two in the base of the grill. Then nothing. As we feared somebody might be eating the other eggs, we put a golf ball in each of the two egg boxes... and the barred rock stopped laying.
Does anyone have an idea of what might be going on? Should we be adding calcium? We had read that you shouldn't add calcium early in the laying process, and we still have seven hens that haven't started laying yet. Any advice?

 

[sheetmetaltom]

not sure exactly how old everyone is but sometimes they don't start laying regularly til 8-10 months. also do they free range, mine do and they sometimes lay in the boxes, some in window wells, under the deck, even in flower pots I have in the back of my yard where I grow perennial flowers.

 

[DBLakeChickens]

They do free range in our back yard, so we've found eggs in strange places, but the barred rock has always laid in the egg box. She was starting to get a bit broody over the last week before she stopped laying, so maybe that is part of her issue...

 

[smarsh2]

yeah, if she is broody, she isn't laying. we could stand to know how old the hens are. i am suspecting these aren't pullets, i would be surprised a pullet laying for only a couple weeks would go broody

 

[whittychick]

Are they molting? Or starting to ? Could be the reason too

 

[DBLakeChickens]

The three hens that have started laying are 28 weeks old. I have 2 Barnevelder hens that are 28 weeks that have not started laying, and another five hens that are 22 weeks old. I believe the first two hens started laying around 16 or 17 weeks old.