Hen was Laying, Now Not but She Lost Access to Her Nest Box

[dawg53]

Dont lock her up. When she's reintroduced with the others, there will be picking and pecking/fighting going on and you dont want that stress.
Since she's young, give her time for her egg laying innards to 'get it right', then she'll lay on a normal basis. She simply may be a slow layer, you cant compare her to the Leghorn egg laying machines that they are.
As long as she's eating and drinking, scratching dirt, foraging, preening etc...acting like a chicken should, everything is fine and she'll lay eggs when she's ready.

 

[WVduckchick]

I agree with the others, if she isn’t acting sickly, I wouldn’t worry too much.

A couple other ideas... is she molting at all? I have several molting right now and they usually stop laying.
Also my lav orps eggs were more rosy pink color, not brown at all, so maybe you had the wrong hen identification?? Lav orps are very slow to lay too.
How red is her comb?

 

[jlwquilter]

Here she is this morning

She’s a big fluff ball of supper soft feathers. No sign of molt or any feather loss at all. She’s acting totally normal. Really normal.

I didn’t think it was an emergency either . I’ve had way too many of those to risk crying wolf!

It is possible thought those small dark brown speckled eggs were hers and they weren’t. On he other hand I haven’t gotten those eggs in a few weeks either so the circumstantial evidence says they were hers. I had several days when out of all the layers only 2 didn’t lay and I knew for 100% sure who one of the 2 was.

Anyway, I’m only concerned if means she has an issue I need to be aware of. I get more eggs than I need so that’s not an issue. And if she’s healthy and never lays that would be ok too in the big picture.

I need to debrief with the sitter this week and I’ll ask about the eggs - locations found and such. They split duty between a few family members so the eggs can be in different homes.

I did have a few soft eggs - maybe 3 in total - that were light pinky brown over the past few weeks. They were in ‘weird’ locations too. I didn’t associate them Marti but maybe they were hers after all. They last soft egg was Friday - the sitter found it under the roosts.

Ok I’m Going to chill Over this and just keep a closer eye on her. I was hesitant to separate her even if just for the day. It’s so hot on top Of any flock issues and adding stress to her certainly wouldn’t help.

Thanks everyone! I’ll post back if/when I catch her in the act of laying!

 

[jlwquilter]

You know what, I can’t even recall if she squats. It’s been one serious chicken issue after another for weeks and like I said, Marti fell off my radar. I’ll test that later today.

 

[ChickNanny13]

You can do @aart .... Worked for me
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/who-is-laying-and-who-is-not-butt-check.73309/

Your Lab Orp is They are my favorite breed.

 

[jlwquilter]

Well, Marti didn’t lay for sure today. I got 14 eggs today out of the 17 hens. One leghorn and one EE didn’t lay so that leave one brown egg layer that didn’t lay. I watched the playback on the nesting camera and only Marti didn’t go into a box. Never even came close enough to get on camera.

So we’ll see what happens tomorrow. At least I don’t have to be out there all the time to see who’s laying. That’s big.

 

[aart]

Never even came close enough to get on camera.

Do you scan a whole days footage to ell who laid and who didn't?
How long does that take?

 

[jlwquilter]

Yes I scanned the whole day. It took maybe 10 minutes. I can jump several minutes at a time as I can clearly see who’s in the main boxes and jump to where they switch out. Loving these cheap cameras! Read about them right here on BYC.

 

[jlwquilter]

MYSTERY SOLVED!!

And solves a second mystery as well - why there were small brown eggs laid in random weird places over the past few weeks.

This is what I saw when I opened the main coop this morning:

It’s kinda funny! Like toilet paper stuck to a shoe. It was on there pretty good.

While this answers some questions it raises a couple as well. I’ll start a new thread for those.

 

[aart]