HELP!!!!!!!!!!! ALL of my hens have stopped laying eggs!

[hytop3]

Post Scrip everybody.
If a hen goes through a molt she will stop laying eggs period until the molt is complete.

Maybe someone else has found a way to get them to lay during molt?

 

[James Beller]

My hens are all mixed mostly common breeds and i have 18 adult hens and 18 younger hens that some have just started laying. And about October the older hens were forced through a molt because they had bare backs no feathers. so we put the roosters up and they grew back and just a week ago we started getting 9 eggs. This could be from the younger hens but one of the older hen layed a wrinkly egg it was big though. We gave it to the dog and it was not a double yolk so. But when they were going through their molt we were only getting 0-2 eggs a day but mostly 0. We let them outside more when they were molting so they would grow back faster and had started getting 3 eggs per day and eventually 9 eggs a day which is good but could be better since we have 25 hens that should be laying. we also have to many roosters that we are going to cull when it cools of more. One hen in summer just layed down and died she was our second oldest hen though at 4 years. Unfortunately our 6 year old hen had died by a raccoon at the beginning of summer. She layed an egg every Saturday well that is when we seen her lay. Her rooster is a Cochin not sure what type but is now going on 7 years in spring he had gotten very depressed but got back into it a few weeks after. He is missing some toe nails but we got that fixed up with some Vaseline on the legs. he resembles this rooster. exact look http://blog.mcmurrayhatchery.com/2011/02/25/cochins/cpc-c1-078-edited/

 

[dolfi]

So I been putting lights on about 5 days out of the week for the past two weeks. Sometimes I just forget to turn them on. And finally yesterday I got my first egg,yeee. Today I went and got the timer so the light turns on at 4:3 am. Hopefully it will trigger the rest of them to start laying.

 

[dolfi]

Thanks for the light timer. My babies are getting back in business. Two out of 5 laying hen started laying everyday.

 

[Crazyfarmer66]

my hens did to but i bought a heating lamp and put it in my coop , then i bought a heater from walmart and put a regular house light in my coop and now my chickens are laying like crazy

 

[rlolivarez]

I don't have electricity near them, plus so far the winter has been mild. I have gotten two eggs in the last week, so I know one of my girls is starting to lay again. Didn't realize when we put the coop and pen in the current location that the direct sunlight would be minimal because of the nearby trees. I'm thinking that when spring rolls in, they will get back into the swing of it.

 

[Crazyfarmer66]

oh well our barn has electricity, but good luck anyways

 

[dolfi]

My hens started slowly within a week of the timer lights. Now they are all laying again.

 

[CochinLover1]

I've heard that oats help with egg laying. Also, putting a little bit of fishmeal into the hens' food will be a good protein boost for them. Too much will cause your hens' eggs to taste fishy.
Heat, Cold, lack of water, lack of protein, lack of calcium, and age are all contributing factors to hens stopping their laying. Even breeds of chickens are a big impact of how many eggs you'll get. If you have comets, they prolapse very easily because they were bred to keep laying until they die. The few remaining comets in our mixed flock have also started to eat the eggs. Which is extremely bad. It is a learned behavior and immediate culling of the teachers would need to happen.

 

[rainerlynn]

Mine are doing the same thing. Egg production has slowed tremendously. My silkie went broodie and now and isn't laying at all. Wish I knew what to do.