My pure white EE was hatched around March 2010. She staretd laying beautifull green eggs around mid August. After that she steadily laid 5 to 6 eggs per week, sometimes seven, until mid December. Since then she has toatally stopped laying. I haven't put light in the coop since my other hens, two Production/Rhode Island Reds, are each lay 3 to 4 eggs per week. The Jersey Giant is even laying three eggs per week. About late December, I noticed the coop was getting really full of white down feathers. It now seems, my lady is on a full molt. There are white feathers everywhere in teh yard and coop. Lately, I am finding long wing feathers with cut tips (from my clipping) and tail feathers. Is there something wrong with my hen? Isn't she really young to be molting so hard? I have scoured the entire yard and there is no egg hiding or yard egging.
EE's are known to take a long break from laying after they have gone into molt. Mine is the same age as yours and she quit laying in October, during her molt. She still hasn't started laying again, and from what I have read, won't start again for another couple months. My RIR started molting in December and hasn't produced an egg since then (maybe 5 weeks).
I have some April girls that are still working a molt they started early December. Almost everyone stopped laying, but most of them started up again after about 2-3 weeks. I still have 2-3 that are still raggedy and I'm pretty sure are still finishing up their molt - the rest of the girls have nice purdy feathers in. I also picked up two Ameruacana's that stopped laying about three months ago, and they look to me like they have just finished a molt, a few pins here and there, but all nice new feathers. One laid an egg yesterday....so at least three months of nothing. As long as she's still happy, well, so it goes!
