I’m trying to decide if they’re off because of the heat or too many changes or what. I have 33 hens, 28ish of which are 15 months old, Golden Comets & Black Australorps.
A couple weeks ago I got two new hens. I’m not sure they’ve been totally accepted, but they aren’t relentlessly bullied. They do get chased away from food. One hasn’t laid yet, the other laid for a few days then stopped - Black Copper Maran and an EE. I had no great way to introduce them slowly, so they were put on the roost at night after a couple nights in a small coop inside the run. The owner hadn’t has anything new on their property in 8-10 months, so likely no illness present.
I was getting 18-20 eggs. But then I found a rat snake and was getting 15-16 eggs/day. The snake was relocated a week ago by a licensed expert.
But the tarp on their hoop coop ripped, so I replaced it the morning after the snake was relocated. Removing the old tarp freaked them out, but they have a huge run to escape to. New tarp went on. I got 7-8 eggs/day for several days then 2/day for the last two days.
Temps have been in the mid- to upper 90s all week. They have access to 11 gallons of water per day and a shade cloth over their run.
So is this just a perfect storm of circumstances or something else? I read that it takes 5 days for them to resume laying if they’re thrown off, but it’s been a week. I have nutridrench; would that help at all?
A couple weeks ago I got two new hens. I’m not sure they’ve been totally accepted, but they aren’t relentlessly bullied. They do get chased away from food. One hasn’t laid yet, the other laid for a few days then stopped - Black Copper Maran and an EE. I had no great way to introduce them slowly, so they were put on the roost at night after a couple nights in a small coop inside the run. The owner hadn’t has anything new on their property in 8-10 months, so likely no illness present.
I was getting 18-20 eggs. But then I found a rat snake and was getting 15-16 eggs/day. The snake was relocated a week ago by a licensed expert.
But the tarp on their hoop coop ripped, so I replaced it the morning after the snake was relocated. Removing the old tarp freaked them out, but they have a huge run to escape to. New tarp went on. I got 7-8 eggs/day for several days then 2/day for the last two days.
Temps have been in the mid- to upper 90s all week. They have access to 11 gallons of water per day and a shade cloth over their run.
So is this just a perfect storm of circumstances or something else? I read that it takes 5 days for them to resume laying if they’re thrown off, but it’s been a week. I have nutridrench; would that help at all?
