Chickens suddenly stopped laying for 3 months?

[Bird2break]

Adding a little light in their coop can promote egg laying. How long ago did they stop laying. Mine have stopped laying before when a predator has spooked them.

PS. One of my personal favorite Bible scriptures!

 

[DKH]

Adding a little light in their coop can promote egg laying. How long ago did they stop laying. Mine have stopped laying before when a predator has spooked them.

It's been just over 3 months since they first stopped laying

 

[Bird2break]

It's been just over 3 months since they first stopped laying

Could a snake be getting to the eggs? I put a golf ball in each of my nest boxes. The snakes invariably eat the golf ball and go off to die bc the snake can’t pass it. It also lets me know if there’s been a snake there if the golf ball is missing. So far (in the past 3 months) we’ve had 7 snakes get in the coop to eat eggs!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Could a snake be getting to the eggs? I put a golf ball in each of my nest boxes. The snakes invariably eat the golf ball and go off to die bc the snake can’t pass it. It also lets me know if there’s been a snake there if the golf ball is missing. So far (in the past 3 months) we’ve had 7 snakes get in the coop to eat eggs!

I had never thought about predators eating fake eggs! I guess that since snakes swallow eggs whole, instead of crunching them up, they don’t realize what they’ve done when they take on a golf ball.

 

[Copperhead1969]

All of our hens stopped laying suddenly around early March (Autumn in Australia). We suspected rats after finding egg reminants in the laying boxes, including fertilised ones that one of our Mama Hen was sitting on and put the halt in egg production down to stress and the fact that some hens may have been molting. It's now been 3 months with 0 eggs, the rat problem has been taken are of and they are all fully feathers & finished with their molting.

The laying hens are Leghorns, Arucana x Australorp and Bantams all between 10-14 months, and had been laying almost daily prior to stopping. We've noticed they aren't squatting when we pat their backs like they used to, and our very vocal roosters have stopped crowing (unsure if related).

They have plenty of Layers Mix and fresh water available to them throughout the day, get plenty of time & space to free range and are up to date with their worm treatment. They seem to be healthy and well.

Am I being impatient or could there be something else going on? Or something else I should try?

When they are stressed like and predation on them they can stop laying. During low daylight time you can put a light inside with a timer and it will help. You can also help them when they are moulting during the heat of summer. I feed soaked scratch and soaked steam rolled barley 50/50 mix. I add 12 ounces power up(as mineral additive)1 cup of liquid 747 (minerals) 1 quart of apple cider vinager , all of that to 250 pounds of each kind of grain. I put them in 55 gallon drums and soak them. That last me 2 months and they love the feed.