Help!!! My chicken stop laying

[shortyana92]

Help! My Rhode Island Red hen stop laying and she is only 2 years old. She doesn’t seem sick. She continues to go into the nesting box to “fake” lay, no eggs come out. The last time she layed was last year in August. What can be wrong? I read everything and nothing helps. My RRH seem perfectly fine. Help please!!!

 

[Latestarter]

Greetings and welcome to BYC. I see you joined quite a while back so I'm sorry that this issue has finally brought you to post. ummmm she hasn't laid in almost a year? I would think if she were egg bound, she'd be dead long before now, so probably not the issue. Molt can take several months, but that doesn't seem to be the issue either. Not sure where you're located so no idea what season it is where you're located (You really should put at least your general location in your profile). Right now here in TX as well as many other parts of the US it's really hot, and that tends to slow egg production as much as really cold weather does.

Where did you get your bird from? was it a hatchery? I ask simply because many hatchery birds are done laying by 2 years old and many don't live much longer than 2-4 years. Many folks order new/replacement chicks each spring so they hit POL in the fall and start laying before winter. When they do this, they normally don't molt & lay through their first winter and then molt and stop laying for their second. Some simply never re-start after that.

 

[shortyana92]

Hello, I’m in NJ and it’s been quite warm over here. We got her from a local breeder who got them from a hatchery. She seems perfectly fine. However, she has killed two little sparrows. They were eating her food and I guess she got mad, but she seems perfectly fine. She try’s every day to lay an egg...goes through the whole process. Sits in the nesting box and crows when she “fake” lays. Not sure what to do. The other two are laying just fine.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

RIRs from "Breeders" are basically heritage chickens and they may only lay a few eggs after the Summer Solstice.

I suspect this is true in your hen's case because she stopped laying in August of 2017. Give her some good animal based protein feed because she will soon start her annual molt and at her age it will be a complete molt.

 

[shortyana92]

Ok, I’ll have to read more about that. I do give them some tuna, dry and live meal worms. What other proteins do you suggest?

She has also yet to actually molt...but the other two have.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Good dry kibble style dog food is good. But for only one hen you may wish to use canned dog food. Say about a teaspoonful or two per day.

I always say to treat your chickens how you wish to treat them but I have serious concerns about feeding the larval stages of darkling beetles to a chicken. The Darkling beetle is a serious, perhaps the most serious pest of chickens on the planet, at least in so far as it passing on pathogens like infectious diseases and internal parasite eggs. There is no better environment in which to raise mealworms than under the manure cake in a commercial chicken house. With so many mealworms being raised overseas there is an ever increasing likelihood that you mealworms will be produced in this way.

Has this hen laid at all in 2018? I asked because I just reread your first post. Did your hen have any breathing issues like rails or raspy breathing?

 

[shortyana92]

Here she is...

 

[shortyana92]

Here a better picture of all my girls

 

[shortyana92]

We haven’t noticed any breathering problems. She layed once this year. Just one egg and we were afraid to eat it. We opened it up and it was perfectly fine.

 

[shortyana92]

This is her again.