Hens are not laying

[leghorn4]

We have 5 Rhode island red hens who are not laying at all. we started off with 2 of them and a leghorn rooster who were laying 2 eggs a day during february and about 2 months later we bought another 5: 4 Rhode islands and Sussex hen. Unfortunately the Sussex hen was killed by a pine marten, and the one of the Rhode islands died of a disease. After a few weeks we were still only getting 3 eggs a day during summer from 5 hens. Then one of them went broody and the eggs dropped to only 2 a day straight away. So we presumed the broody hen laid close to 7 eggs a week. the eggs supply during the three weeks dropped sharply from about 13 from 4 hens to about 4 eggs a week. Then the hens started to moult about 10 weeks ago and we haven't got an egg since. I have checked them for mites and found none. They are all health looking and very active. we have tried every thing from layers pellets to making sure they weren't eating them. Some help would be greatly appricated . thanks

 

[sourland]

Click on the 'sticky' on the top of this page. "Why aren't my chickens laying?" The short answer is that short day length and end of molt are probable causative factors in the decreased egg production. Supplemental lighting to bring the day length up to 14 hours might very well jumpstart them.