Discouraged--ready to make chicken & dumplings and start over...

[Henraiser]

Two years ago, I started out with a nice sized flock. Through culling and a few unfortunate chicken deaths, my flock is now 9 hens and a roo. From the time my girls first started laying, they have been highly inconsistent. I've done everything I can think to do, and I have at times sought the council of this forum. I'm ready to butcher them and start over.

Throughout the 1 & 1/2 years since the girls first started laying, it has been the same pattern two weeks of good laying followed by weeks of little or no laying--including one 8 week period of not a single egg--and that was not during molting. During molting, went 3 months without an egg.

For a long time, I resisted the temptation to put artificial light on them, but I finally did about 8 weeks ago. They started laying like crazy. It lasted about 3 weeks. Even with the light, they have gone back to their old ways. Last 4 weeks have been a sum total of about 8 eggs. I have 4 white rock hens, 5 barred rocks, and 1 barred rock rooster.

My girls have always received nothing but the best layer pellets, plenty of clean water, great house and great place to roam (inside a predator-proof pen).

Out of the 1 1/2 years of laying, I have gotten maybe 15 weeks of good solid laying from the whole flock. Considering the cost of the layer pellets, this has been some mega-expensive eggs.

 

[Masonicflock]

Course I dont know what breed you are raising but that could play a difference. Have you tried Layena's Omega 3 blah blah bag at TSC?? I use it with oyster shell and cracked corn and that is all mine get except what they find when I turn them out every morning to roam the farm. One thing to try is to mix some hot pepper powder or crush up hot pepper powder into corn bread mixing and make you corn bread and feed it to the chickens.

Sounds crazy but my Grandad always swore up and down in this method and none of his have failed that I know or can recall. Friends of mine just tried it and it worked. Just make it "hot" enough to where you can stand it because you dont want to burn the chicken up on the inside. Good luck

 

[CGinJCMO]

I don't know what's wrong with your chickens but for the pepper thing, I thought birds couldn't taste the hot and the pepper was to deter mammals (squirrels, mice, rats, etc.) from wanting the feed.

Could you try a bit of food coloring at the vent to find out who's laying and who isn't? I read about someone doing that and the dye lasted for weeks (it got fainter and fainter but it was still there).

Good Luck
CG

 

[Cotton42]

Maybe you have an egg eater? Also keep in mind that they're not machines and will have ups and downs in their laying cycles. I have 18 hens and some days I get 15 eggs and some days I get 5.

 

[Mtn Margie]

I would start with nutrition, protein and calcium. No treats or minimal. Fat chickens don't lay well either.
Then move on to deworming and mites
Maybe something is stealing the eggs? Rat, squirrel, snake?
Egg eater? Or if the egg shells get thin and break when being layed, the chickens will eat them.
Stress?
I would just start checking on things....