Excited to join this community! Hens started than stopped laying

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BJs 1st flock

BJs 1st flock

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Aug 1, 2016
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Hi all! My family is having a great time raising our birds in Michigan. We have 11 chickens and 2 ducks. Our two oldest hens just started laying and produced 5 eggs in a week, which was really exciting. That was two weeks ago and we have yet to see any more. Is this normal? Is there any reason they would start and stop? Any insight or advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
Greetings from Kansas and :welcome. Great to have you aboard. Not sure if it is hot where you live but heat really knocks back egg production. Also, if you allow your birds to range they sometimes find the sneakiest places to lay - under bushes, under the deck, you name it. That's my best guess. Good luck to you! :weee
 
Thank you for the info red! It has been hot and they are free range! We may just have to offer 5 bucks to the first one who finds an egg in the yard!
 
I hope you find any eggs before they get fried. If this is first eggs from pullets, they can be off and on laying until they get the kinks worked out of their egg producing sytem
 
Also, if you have only just acquired these hens, the stress of moving will knock them off laying, but for the first few days of having them, there are eggs on the "production line" that have to come out. It is not unusual for them to take a couple of weeks to settle in before they start to lay again. In the northern hemisphere, we are also getting to the time of year that older hens will start their annual moult, so that could be an issue too.
 
Hello there-
I am in the same boat as you. I have three hens one of which started laying at 18 weeks old. We were getting one a day for about two and a half weeks. Now nothing.
Ours our semi free range so we let them out to roam a few hours a day.
Not sure what the deal is....
 
Welcome to BYC! It's great to have you.

New pullets have no idea what they're doing regarding laying... ovaries are still figuring out how to work and hormones are going crazy. They might start laying then stop, might lay little eggs then big ones... they'll normalize within a few weeks to a few months.
 

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