Defective Hen??

[Mother Clucker17]

I have one in my flock that lays a dark brown egg. I'm pretty sure that its a recessive gene to lay the colored egg and a dominant to lay brown so keep an eye out for brown eggs too. I wouldn't give up hope. Even though it is possible that a hen could never lay an egg its a genetic defect that only happens statistically 1 in 1000 hens so that's a .0001% chance that your hen will never lay an egg. I think everything will be ok, as you said its been getting colder. They kick into high gear once the temp gets colder so one option would be to throw them some corn, oats, rice, or whatever grain like that (I use a homemade varied mix of many grains and seeds) before bed and it will help them have energy when they sleep. Its also good for them to have a higher fat level in their diet so they have extra energy and a layer of fat to keep warm. Just my 2 cents lol.

 

[MountainWoman73]

I have one, Erlene, who is doing the same thing. She hatched the week of April 1st last year, so she's 10ish months old. I'm fairly sure I'm keeping track of whose eggs are whose, and I've never gotten one from her. She's also my dumbest chicken, who decided to roost up on the tin roof on the night we got 17 inches of snow, and then kept trying to go back there. I had to clip her wings after the third dumb-chicken-roof-rescue. I've never had to clip anyone's wings before. So now we only refer to her as "Goddamn Erlene". Lol.

Solidarity, fellow farmer.

 

[birdfreak1831]

Have you ever had a hen just not ever lay an egg? Could I have a defective hen? The weather is starting to get colder and some of my other girls are slowing down. Is she going to make me wait until Springtime? Ugh! I hope not.

YES!
One of my disabled [defective?] hens never laid eggs.
She lived with us until her time to cross over, following a disabled old rooster.
While here with us, she had several health problems, some very serious.
The rough external look due to missing or misshapen feathers was not grave in my opinion - what mattered was her gracious personality.
More worrisome was that she would throw grand mal type
seizures, then get up again as if nothing had happened.
Her other most obvious "defect" was two toes missing on one foot and the other foot missing altogether.

And, no eggs of course....

Precious, we called her, got along fine with the others and joined them in their normal chicken behaviors.
Like scratching with her stump, foraging, dust- and sunbathing....

She taught me much. Things like faith, trust, bravery, endurance, kindness, patience, contentedness....

P.S. I specialize, if one wants to call it that, on disabled, rejects,
sick or in any way outside of mainstream critters, human and animal.

 

[HoneysuckleHomestead]

So while we wait....how about some pics?
Hopefully the 'guy' has kept the John Blehm birds pure.

I have them in a breeding pen with some olive eggers. As far as I know, he got the hatching eggs directly from Blehm.

 

[Fagrifoss]

I have them in a breeding pen with some olive eggers. As far as I know, he got the hatching eggs directly from Blehm.
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They are BEAUTIFUL!