Hens not laying...need help!

[luvmybirdz]

I'm not sure this will be an easy one to answer. I've got 15 hens that should be laying well for me right now. They were born on Oct 31 and started laying for me around March/April. It was slow going at first and just around July I started to steadily get around a doz a day (finally!). I've had more broody behavior than I ever expected, including a hen that hatched out 7.

I got 2 goats about 5 wks ago and they sort of made the ckn house their hang out and where they slept. Everyone has lots of room to roam about and the ckns are only in the coop for egg laying or at bedtime. I know the girls were invaded the stress caused them to cut way back on laying. I also had an injured bird that wouldn't lay and a couple broodys. Still now I get very few eggs and I don't know what is causing it. They don't seem to be moulting at all eat and drink well, and act fine otherwise. I regularly will get 3 eggs.....3! After completely cleaning out their coop, I have the laying hens only in the coop for the day. This evening I'll give them a couple hrs out. I was trying to see if some were laying elsewhere (several girls fly over their yard fence and roam about all day) or if maybe they just needed to be 'retrained' to use their coop and so they could be comfortable in there again. I have no idea if this will help or not, but it made sense to me when I came up with the idea. 1 egg so far today

After only laying since Spring, they shouldn't be quitting already, right? Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[tdhenson86]

Where are you located? It could be a combination of the stress from the goats as well as heat... I know that a lot of people have had a hard time getting eggs this year with how hot it has been...

 

[GrandmaChickie]

I think your idea about keeping them in the coop for a while is a good one--they might have felt that the coop wasn't safe for egg-laying, since it was "invaded." They could very well be laying somewhere else. And the heat is definitely a factor. I was down to 1 egg a day during July. ONE!

 

[luvmybirdz]

I was worried penning them up on the coop would cause more stress since they're so use to roaming free w/lots of space. I hated to do it but I know they're fine. Funny enough it was during the hottest time that I was getting the best laying out of them. I had been steadily geting 8-10 eggs a day and then I'd get 11-13! That was how they were laying up until I brought the goats home. We did find one spot that someone had been laying for awhile. That spot would get revisited every so often and there was 1 day when my daughter found 1 someplace else. We've looked everywhere we can think to. They just don't seem to be laying hardly at all! I know my 2 americaunas haven't been laying for about a week at least...they're my only blue/green egg layers. But seriously they shouldn't at their age not be laying, right? We'll try this for a few days and hopefully they'll get back to laying. We'll be butchering a few roo's this weekend, so maybe that'll help them out if they're stressed at all over them. The younger roos don't try to mate them, but maybe there's just too many boys around too and it's a bit crowded at night right now. I miss all the eggs, and them helping pay for their feed!

 

[GrandmaChickie]

I hear you on that! My chickens paying for their own feed was the only thing that was keeping DH from flipping his lid about the dust bath holes all over his well-tended lawn! LOL!