Hen laid for 2 weeks and then never again?

[CowgirlPenny]

I was just wondering if anyone knew why this happened. She never did molt (or not that I saw) she was never sick, never had weird poop or anything like that. She began to lay in August and laid daily for about two weeks, then she just stopped I felt around on her several times and she did not feel egg bound (plus I'm pretty sure she would have died from that). I had my daughter checking several times a day to be sure nobody was eating them and nobody was. Then nearly two months went by and not an egg ever again!

She's an EE by the way was hatched at the end of April.

 

[calicokat]

You don't say where you are located, but sometimes shrinking hours of daylight will cause them to stop. It takes a certain amount of daylight to complete the egg cycle, and as the days get shorter, the eggs slow down or stop through the winter.

But most often when that happens with my hens it's worms. You can take a fecal sample to a vet and they can let you know for sure, but I just watch the hens and when I see one make a fresh little pile - I look at it. If there are little white dots, or tiny white things moving then you have worms.

It's not to hard to treat and my girls are usually laying again in a few days. Wazine is a wormer that you put in the water, check the label for dosage. Let them drink that water for one day and pitch it the next day. Throw the eggs away for 10 days (they may have traces of the Wazine in them you don't want them eaten.)

Then, after the 10 days move on to a "broad spectrum" wormer, I use Safeguard for cattle (it's a paste.) The dosage I was taught was a small pea size amount for Bantums and a large pea size amount for Large fowl. I administer this right in their mouth (tried hiding it in bread, but one hen loved it and would rip the bread out of other's mouths before they could eat it - resulting in too much wormer for her!!) Then throw eggs away for 10 more days.

After that you are good to go. Just keep an eye on the poo every now and then to know if it's time to do this again.

After a few times of using the Safeguard, it is recommended to use a different broad spectrum wormer so that they don't build a resistance to it and it then it stops being effective.

 

[CowgirlPenny]

Quote:
Everyone else kept laying for about a month then they all slowly stopped too with the shorter days (to the point we get 3 eggs out of 18 hens a day now) so now I'm thinking maybe since she's just not bred for egg production, she quit earlier than some of the others?

No worms. I check it religiously. We are in South/East Tn.