Hello, I have 4 hens that I bought when they were a week old. 2 RIR, 1 black australorp, and 1 araucana. They hatched on May 5th 2009. In October the RIR's started laying. I'm still waiting for the other 2 to start. Is this normal? The black australorp is on borrowed time if she keeps making so much noise . All 4 have equal sized combs and waddles. Any insight would be appreciated.
I have a couple I hatched out on the 25th of April that have yet to lay. If they don't lay soon, they'll get their pink slips.
Some take more time than others, but that is a pretty good age to have started laying. And yes all hens lay IF they are of age to healthy and have proper nutrition, those are the keys.
All 4 have equal sized combs and waddles. IS it possible that the other two are hiding eggs? Maybe they are mature-enough but not getting the right nutrients? Sometimes it takes extra protein or something. What do you feed them?
Do they free-range? If so, suspect egg-hiding. If not, try to boost protein with something like Calf-manna. Could be that if it was warm weather, they would have already started. Another thing that could help is to carry warm water to them daily during this cold weather.
I don't know where you are from, but if the weather is significantly colder and the days shorter, you may be out of luck until spring.Your hens may have just been reaching their maturity when the cold and shorter days put them into a delay mode You can try adding light to your coop to mimic longer days. Put it on a timer to add artificial daylight stretching their day to 12-14 hours long. Good luck!
Hah. One of my black sexlinks is 9.5 months old and NOT laying, not even squatting! She's driving me mad! Eat, poop, eat, eat, poop, eat, poop some more... FREELOADER!
