Well, not REALLY drastic, but definitely different.
Here is a bit of backstory to where I am going. I have 8 chickens total, 2 are 18 week old roos (no they were not planned, but life likes to throw you some curves now and again), 1 ~ 18 week old cochin pullet, 1 ~18 week old orpington pullet. And then I have 4 pullets that I bought just before these that looked to be around 4 weeks of age already so that puts them around 22 weeks of age. In this last 4 older pullets are 2 brown leghorn and 2 golden comets.
One of the golden comets has been laying for a bit over 3 weeks and the other right at a week. But the 2 leghorns, which APPEAR to have been ready to lay before the goldens are either hiding or eating their eggs because we have no white eggs to speak of. My chickens free range all day, but we do have a large hen house and pretty good sized run. My run however, didn't get fully attached to the hen house (some very unexpected family things came up the very day we were out there to put up gutters on the hen house and attach the run). I have searched every nook and cranny of my 1/4 acre and I'm telling you, they are nowhere to be found here. HOWEVER, they do like to escape my yard and visit my neighbor so I am thinking there is a good possibility that they could be laying somewhere in his yard. He can't seem to find them either though.
this is how the leghorns looked bout 2 weeks ago. To me they look like they should be laying.
Yesterday I decided to just sort of rig something up to block the areas in the run that were not attached so that I could keep the 4 older girls in there until about 2 pm just to see if the leghorns are INDEED laying. My question is, because this is a very different routine and chickens tend to not like change, will this disrupt their laying cycle enough that they don't lay? If it will disrupt them, about how many days do you think it will it take to get them settled enough to lay again?
And I feel sorry for the goldens, they are forced into the run with the leghorns because they won't have access to the nest boxes otherwise. The saddest thing of all though, is my big rooster Dexter who is pacing back and forth in front of the run because he can't get to his girls!
Here is a bit of backstory to where I am going. I have 8 chickens total, 2 are 18 week old roos (no they were not planned, but life likes to throw you some curves now and again), 1 ~ 18 week old cochin pullet, 1 ~18 week old orpington pullet. And then I have 4 pullets that I bought just before these that looked to be around 4 weeks of age already so that puts them around 22 weeks of age. In this last 4 older pullets are 2 brown leghorn and 2 golden comets.
One of the golden comets has been laying for a bit over 3 weeks and the other right at a week. But the 2 leghorns, which APPEAR to have been ready to lay before the goldens are either hiding or eating their eggs because we have no white eggs to speak of. My chickens free range all day, but we do have a large hen house and pretty good sized run. My run however, didn't get fully attached to the hen house (some very unexpected family things came up the very day we were out there to put up gutters on the hen house and attach the run). I have searched every nook and cranny of my 1/4 acre and I'm telling you, they are nowhere to be found here. HOWEVER, they do like to escape my yard and visit my neighbor so I am thinking there is a good possibility that they could be laying somewhere in his yard. He can't seem to find them either though.
this is how the leghorns looked bout 2 weeks ago. To me they look like they should be laying.
Yesterday I decided to just sort of rig something up to block the areas in the run that were not attached so that I could keep the 4 older girls in there until about 2 pm just to see if the leghorns are INDEED laying. My question is, because this is a very different routine and chickens tend to not like change, will this disrupt their laying cycle enough that they don't lay? If it will disrupt them, about how many days do you think it will it take to get them settled enough to lay again?
And I feel sorry for the goldens, they are forced into the run with the leghorns because they won't have access to the nest boxes otherwise. The saddest thing of all though, is my big rooster Dexter who is pacing back and forth in front of the run because he can't get to his girls!
