HELP! My chickens are slowing/stopping egg production at less than A YEAR old

[DearChicken]

They might be molting, sometimes they skip fall molt and molt after spring.

Chickens don’t molt until they are about 1 1/2 years old. Since they free range, I would think they built an egg elsewhere. I free-ranged too, and they would build nests in shrubs, grass, everywhere. I’d find only a few eggs in the nesting boxes and a so many as a stumbled across some secret nest.
It could also be the weather. When they get less sunlight, such as cloudy and rainy days, they lay less. I usually get 22 or so eggs per day, but when it’s cloudy, I only get around 13.

 

[turkey girl 0964]

Since they free range, I would think they built an egg elsewhere. I free-ranged too, and they would build nests in shrubs, grass, everywhere. I’d find only a few eggs in the nesting boxes and a so many as a stumbled across some secret nest.

x2 I was wondering where my hens kept wondering of to when I let them out to free range, so I followed one of the hens and there was 23 eggs in a nest in our wash.

 

[NatJ]

HELP! My chickens are slowing/stopping egg production at less than A YEAR old!!
Please help! My chickens egg production was really great (I have four hens and we were getting 4 eggs a day) until a couple of weeks ago when we started getting 0-2 eggs a day.

What season is it where you live?

In the spring, some hens go broody and sit on a nest trying to hatch eggs. Broody hens stop laying eggs while they are broody, and can take a while to start laying again after they are done being broody.

In the fall, most hens molt (lose their feathers and grow new ones). They stop laying while they molt, and some do not lay eggs again until the next spring. Others start laying again once they are done molting.

At any time of year, the hens could make a new nest somewhere hidden, so they are still laying but you need to find where the eggs are.

 

[NatJ]

Chickens don’t molt until they are about 1 1/2 years old.

For most chickens that hatched in the spring, that is probably true. But I've had chicks that hatched in February (early spring) that molted their first fall, when they were less than one year old.

 

[DearChicken]

x2 I was wondering where my hens kept wondering of to when I let them out to free range, so I followed one of the hens and there was 23 eggs in a nest in our wash.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Chickens don’t molt until they are about 1 1/2 years old.

That's not 100% guaranteed. When I hatch eggs before traditional spring season starts, they're molting with the adults that following winter