Chickens on strike

[Mid Wales chicken keeper]

Hi all, can anyone offer advice (or reassurance)
I only have 3 girls, all around 21 months old. They started laying in November 22, and were pretty consistent up until December 23.
The Calder ranger (Brunhilde) hasn't laid since December. The Warren (Ginger) and Black Rock,(Rocky) laid sporadically through the darkness of winter, but picked back up again in February this year.
Now Ginger seems to be on strike as well, I can't seem to find any sign of sickness, the all have bright eyes, perky tail feathers, no sign of diarrhoea or discharge. Ginger & Rocky have bright red combs and wattles, Brunhildes are more pink and are only just starting to swell since moulting. Their diet is made up of mixed grain feed from a local agricultural supplier, supplemented with calciworm, parsley, cooked mince beef, a few grapes etc.(they refuse to eat layers pellets) and the supplementary food was recommended on this site. I read on here to try cooked lentils, but that had no effect. They get wormed with flubenvet, and have ACV and Verm-X
If anyone can offer any advice I'd be very grateful

 

[21hens-incharge]

Is the ACV a constant? If so it can ave negative effects in calcium absorption.

Did you try making a wet mash with the layer pellets?
Have you tried using a flock raiser formula? Mine certainly prefer it to layer pellets.

 

[Perris]

Hi all, can anyone offer advice (or reassurance)
I only have 3 girls, all around 21 months old. They started laying in November 22, and were pretty consistent up until December 23.
The Calder ranger (Brunhilde) hasn't laid since December. The Warren (Ginger) and Black Rock,(Rocky) laid sporadically through the darkness of winter, but picked back up again in February this year.
Now Ginger seems to be on strike as well, I can't seem to find any sign of sickness, the all have bright eyes, perky tail feathers, no sign of diarrhoea or discharge. Ginger & Rocky have bright red combs and wattles, Brunhildes are more pink and are only just starting to swell since moulting. Their diet is made up of mixed grain feed from a local agricultural supplier, supplemented with calciworm, parsley, cooked mince beef, a few grapes etc.(they refuse to eat layers pellets) and the supplementary food was recommended on this site. I read on here to try cooked lentils, but that had no effect. They get wormed with flubenvet, and have ACV and Verm-X
If anyone can offer any advice I'd be very grateful

Do they free range? If so, they may be laying away, and the first thing to do in any case is establish whether or not each one is actually laying. This article by a long-standing and very experienced member of BYC tells you how to do that
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/who-is-laying-and-who-is-not-butt-check.73309/

I would do this before meddling with their food, since they sound very healthy from your description, and the feed sounds fine from my perspective. Do you fancy trying the butt check?

 

[Mid Wales chicken keeper]

Thanks again, hope they get back to normal soon, hubby has started,d mentioning BBQ sauce to them

 

[Ridgerunner]

Do the butt check to start with. It is a great place to start so you have an idea what you are dealing with.

Chickens stop laying when they molt. It sounds like one molted. She should start laying again after her molt is fully over. It is March s days are getting longer and her comb and wattles are getting pinker. It probably won't be much longer.

One reason people often think their hens have stopped laying is that they are hiding a nest. So that is one possibility.

Sometimes a critter is getting the eggs. It sounds like the other hen is still laying and only one hen's eggs are missing so this is unlikely. Since it is only her eggs this saves me a lot of typing.

If her vent looks like she is still laying I'd consider locking her in an area where she can't hide a nest for a few days. See if an egg miraculously appears. If this works she is hiding a nest on you. For others it could mean you have locked out something getting the eggs but that sounds unlikely for you.

If she is not laying it could mean she has started a molt or has shut down for a bit. As long as she is healthy I'd be patient and wait.

 

[Mid Wales chicken keeper]

A wet mash shouldn't have identifiable pellets. I mix 1 part pellets to 1 part hot water and let it sit 5 minutes then add more water until it is as thick as cooked oatmeal. If you let it sit after each water addition the pellets soak it up and break up.

A chick starter formula or feed designed for mixed flocks that include ducks and turkeys is what an "all flock" or "flock raiser" is.

I use Purina brand flock raiser myself.

Honestly the ACV really doesn't help so isn't worth the effort in my experience. Years ago I gave it a try and many of my birds stopped laying. Those that continued to lay had thin shells that broke easily. Once I quit the ACV things slowly returned to normal.

Thank you, that's great information, Purina is available in UK I believe, surely on Amazon if not in shops, will give it a try and cut out the ACV

 

[nuthatched]

Do try to switch back to layer feed, their current diet doesn't give them enough nutrients. No healthy animal will not eat food if hungry, they just know that they'll get something else if they don't eat the healthy stuff.
X2, cut out the herbs, acv and extras. Vermx isn't a wormer, it won't do a thing.

 

[Mid Wales chicken keeper]

Do they free range? If so, they may be laying away, and the first thing to do in any case is establish whether or not each one is actually laying. This article by a long-standing and very experienced member of BYC tells you how to do that
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/who-is-laying-and-who-is-not-butt-check.73309/

I would do this before meddling with their food, since they sound very healthy from your description, and the feed sounds fine from my perspective. Do you fancy trying the butt check?

Many thanks, they are housed in a coop with a rambling run which is partly covered as it rains a lot here, so definitely not laying away. Each girl lays a distinctive egg, so I'm sure that only Rocky (the black rock) is laying. Thanks for the reassurance about the diet, I try to keep it healthy and interesting for them. I could do a butt check, but don't want to stress them out when I'm sure they are not laying.

 

[Perris]

Thanks Ridgerunner, they don't free range, they are in a coop with a rambling run which covers quite a bit of the garden, there's no stray eggs in it and no predators, only sheep in the fields next door. I'm curious about the moult (UK spelling) though. This was their first one, and they didn't start until late December, I read it normally occurs in the autumn. The Calder ranger had the most obvious one, her comb is still smaller and pinker, the other 2 just lost a few feathers and looked a bit scruffy, their combs etc are nice bright red.

mine start to moult anywhere between August and January (! yes, really) and we probably have very similar weather, so it may well just be that your girls were late into moult or are slow moulters. Some here get it over and done with quickly but are practically bare for a couple of weeks, others take it slow and steady and you barely notice they're moulting at all!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm curious about the moult (UK spelling) though.

Two countries separated by a common language.

Different things can cause a molt. The most common is the days getting shorter (technically the nights getting longer). The natural cycle from before they were domesticated was that they lay eggs and raise chicks in the good weather months (spring and summer), then stop laying and replace worn-out feathers in fall/winter. They stop laying when they molt so the food that was going to egg production can go to making feathers. They don't restart laying until the food supply improves and days get longer.

With domestication we've changed some or this a bit. Practically all mature chickens will molt when the days get shorter but some (not all but some) skip the molt their first fall/winter and may keep laying all winter. These often continue laying until the normal molt the following fall.

Other things can cause a molt at any time though. It often involves stress. One way to trigger a molt that the commercial operations use is to keep them from water for a while. They have veterinarians that supervise this, it's not for the common people like us. Sometimes changes can cause a molt. That could be moving them to a new coop/run or changes to their current set-up. Adding or subtracting members of the flock, especially dominant members, may trigger a molt. Maybe a predator attack. The egg laying cycle goes from start of lay to several months of good laying and then it tapers off. Egg volume and quality can suffer. These cycles may last 13 to 16 months typically. At the end of this cycle the hen may molt and stop laying to replenish her body.

Then there is the partial molt. A full molt follows a certain pattern. They start by losing feathers from their heads and necks and continue in a certain pattern. This may take a bit over a month or as many as five months to finish. The length of time it takes is mostly hereditary. But some only do a partial molt. They do not replace all of their feathers in the pattern but only some. They will probably stop laying during this partial molt but they can recover and start laying again fairly soon. As you can see the molt covers a lot of territory.

One sign a hen is laying or is close to laying is that her comb and wattles get bright red. When she's not laying the comb and wattles can be more yellow or orange. I've had hens with yellow combs lay eggs and hens with bright red combs not. There are a lot of exceptions to this, each hen is an individual, but it is often a pretty good sign. To me, the only thing consistent about chickens is that they are inconsistent.