Help my hens slowed laying!

[jeffreynlila]

I am trying to find out if my hens are just stressed or what? Wednesday night last week I introduced 3 sussex pullets to our 5 leghorns. Friday I dug out part of thier run to put in sand, but could not get the sand until monday. Thier egg production went down quite a bit, I thought it was just stress from the changes. It has been 5 days now and the eggs are still really low we were getting 4 or 5 a day and this whole week I have been getting 1,2, or no eggs per day. How long should it take to get back into the swing of things? could they be multing? We got the leghorns easter last year. We are giving them light so they get 14 hours a day of light. No charges in diet. Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[gilligans island]

hello! Im pretty new to chickens, but in my new very deep addiction and obsessive research on BYC, what I learned is introduction of new chickens will cause stress and will cause low or no production. same thing happenend when we bought our RIRS-1yrs old. the change of environment and probably the ride in the pickup in a dog kennel stressed them out and it took the 4-5 weeks to start laying again and also getting them on a light schedule which I learned from the experts here on BYC.
hope that helps!
Troy

 

[rebel-rousing-at-night]

It is normal for egg laying to go off when new chickens are introduced.I can not tell you when your egg production will go back to normal.I would think it wood depend on when your chickens get used to the newcomers.

 

[jeffreynlila]

Thank you! I thought they were stressed from the changes. What seems wierd to me is that if they stress is from adding in the new birds that the day after the into I got 4 eggs and the next I got 5, then they started dropping off. They went from 4,5,4,3,1,2,1,1,0 starting from the day of introduction. The sussex do like to hang out in the nest boxes and I am trying to break them of that. The breeder had them in a rabit cage with a closed of very small coop attatched so I think they want to hang out in the nest boxes because it is what they are used to. I put them on the perch at night and in the morning they are back in the boxes. Any ideas on how to help with that? Thanks!

 

[Ranger 45]

The chickens are stressed, but you can try feeding them egg crumble, thats what i give mine and it helps them. To stop them from sleeeping in the nexsting boxes cover up the front with a pice of wood every evening when they go to roost and take it down in the morning.