Egg laying issue??

[Charobs]

I have 20 chickens, 19 hens and a rooster. I have been getting 16 -18 eggs a day but today I only got nine. Any reason why? It has gotten a lot colder in the last couple days. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[BorneHomestead]

for starters, how old are your chickens? and do you let them free range?

 

[Charobs]

March 5th chicks, Have been laying since 18 -20 weeks old.

 

[Charobs]

No on the free range also. To many predators here.

 

[aart]

Shortening of daylight hours, they need about 14 hours of daylight.

 

[Charobs]

So if I put a light in the coup for a couple extra hours it should help or what else could I do?

 

[Ridgerunner]

It’s not that they NEED 14 hours a day to lay. Many chickens live close enough to the equator that they never see 14 hours in a day and still lay really well. It’s the days getting shorter that can cause a drop in production.

Cold weather (or really hot weather) can cause a drop in egg production. That could easily be your problem.

Is this a one day thing or is it a trend? Nor every chicken always lays every day but occasionally event he great layers skip a day. If it is a one-day thing, it could just be a coincidence that several picked that day to skip.

Did something happen to stress them out? Run out of water for a while, a predator or something else frighten them, did you add or take away chickens to upset the pecking order, anything that could cause them to stress out. That can easily cause some to skip one or even many days.

If snakes are still active, they will visit and eat several eggs, then stay away for two or three days to digest the food, then come back for another meal. If eggs disappear without a trace in a group without leaving a trace I suspect a snake, some type of canine like dog, fox, or coyote, or maybe even a human. A dog may only be interested in the eggs, especially if it is a family pet, but a fox or coyote is more likely to go after a chicken instead of just eggs. You can’t totally rule out predators like that, but it’s probably really unlikely I your case.

If they are not hiding a nest on you, those are my most likely thoughts. Good luck! Hope they are back to normal today.

 

[Charobs]

Wow thanks for taking the time to write all that information.