grrr Please read !

[spamee34]

Well I want to say congrats to those who have eggs! Now I want to tell all of you who still havn't gotten an egg yet and your girls are gettin up there just think of me when your in distress! I have three Jersey Giants and five SLW and five RIR's and two dominiquers and NONE of them are laying!!!!!!:rolleyes SO I am really ready to see an egg! Our girls were bought around late April early May and so they would be around nine months old so I SHOULD HAVE EGGS!!!!! I have always been a stickler on feed and bought what ever was affordable whick was sometimes scratch and sometimes mix for dairy or even sweet feed so I think I have messed them up , SO now I have them on scratch and greens and pellets at the first sign of eggs hepefully if I keep em on one kind of food they will lay soon. We have two roos one JG and one SLW and neither one is crowing yet either and our neighbors roos are crowing every morning so I hope soon they will learn how to do this amazing thing and realize they are roos! So has anyone else had to wait around 38 weeks to see an egg? Please let me know what I can do to help my girls out ?

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

Dairy will always cause them to not lay. Except...... Small amounts of yogurt or kefir are ok, once a weeks or so. Raw perferably.
It really must be cultured dairy though.
Birds are lactose intolerant.

 

[pwand]

Are you giving them their main feed. I feed mine 17% laying pellets as there primary food. I give them a small amount of hen scratch in the morning as a treat. And then I give them greens. Now daylight is short, and my hens have all stopped laying. I don't keep a light on for 14hrs a day as to keep then going. Make sure you give them lots of calcium. It could be when the time they would start to lay is when daylight got short. Try putting a light on for them for 14hrs each day.

 

[FortWorthChicks]

laying pellets and timed light for morning

Also... since you wrote this you should have an egg or three first thing in the morning

if you dont have an egg in the morning try tossing them a handful of catfood instead of scratch if you have it.

They dont need much scratch ... its like candy

 

[babyblue]

I would make sure the bulk of your feed( 99.9%) of what they eat is proper laying feed. also check for hidden nests and any sort of egg preds, animal or human that may be stealing eggs before you even see them.

 

[melody123]

#1 Give them some extra light. It really helps.

#2 Are they free range, if so they are probably hiding their eggs. Try locking them in their pen for a few days with a golf ball or fake egg in a nest. Or keep an eye out and see where they disapear off to in the morning.

#3 Laying pellets help a lot, unless you have REALLY good pasture for them to eat.

(I feed my laying hens almost nothing, they would rather eat bugs/worms/grass/ and stuff out of the cow pies than the food in their pen. But I keep food in their pen for the rainy days. Remember, chickens lived on farms long before laying pellets were invented. BTW - I'm swimming in eggs!)

Good luck!

 

[tnchickenut]

Quote:
agreed. I had a free ranging hen once that had a whole clutch worth of eggs hidden from me because I didn't realize she was in lay yet! Luckily I found them before she went broody. Not to talk bad about her parenting skills, but it wasn't a safe location. lol

 

[spamee34]

I guess I should of been clear when I said dairy mix that is the dairy texture most folks feed cattle which I have heard is ok for ducks so I was feeding it to my chickens to not buy pellets hee hee I knew better and yes I live in east texas so I do need about four hours more of light in the coop I will do that then . Thanks for the help ! I also have twenty four runner ducks in with my chickens they seem to all function ok I can't wait till they too begin to lay man at the eggs we will have the runners are just six months old so they may lay before my chickens.

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

Quote:
You've got your answer. Dairy mix is all wrong for chickens.
Then need a layer ration, with a good ratio of calcium in it, or on the side.

 

[cassie]

Quote:
Umm, back in the dark ages when I was young many laying flocks were routinely fed skim milk. That is because a lot of people had cows and sold the cream. The skim milk was fed to children, of which I was one, pigs and chickens. People who made their living from their flocks of laying chickens would often buy skim milk for their hens. Didn't cause them to quit laying. Quite the contrary. I know people who now feed milk to chickens and turkeys being fattened for meat. These birds do not have any digestive problems, and if they couldn't digest the milk they would.