Hens suddenly stopped laying

[crazychick26201]

My Buff Orpingtons 10 months old, have been consistent layers all winter. Now that the weather is a little warmer, and daylight hours a bit longer, they have become inconsistent and some days do not lay at all. They seem otherwise healthy, and are eating well. Does anyone have any ideas as to why the change?

 

[ChickenSaloon]

There is always a chance that your hens are eating TOO well. If your birds start to get fat that can affect their ovulation. Have you noticed any increase in size?

Also, if the weather has changed dramatically their molt might be coming in, and that is another time period where egg production can change, and then later go back to normal.

 

[crazychick26201]

Ok. here is recent history. The winter has been so cold here, and I am a first time chicken keeper. I have been feeding them scratch in the morning when it was below zero and evening before they go to roost because I thought it increased their body heat, so they could adapt to the cold. The last two weeks, I have been keeping a heat lamp with a red bulb on in their run (not in the attached coop, but it has windows facing the run so they could still see the glow). This brought temps in the run up to 0 - 10 so they could come down in the run to eat and drink. I have a heated dog dish in there so they have access to water all the time. Also access to their pelleted laying food. This past week, the weather has warmed up to the 30's in the day, and 20's at night so the heat lamp is off. I have been mixing about a cup of their laying pellets with warm water in the morning which they eat ravenously. Otherwise they are not touching their pellets as far as I can tell. They also get an apple and a bowl of greens at midday. But after being confined to the coop and run for about a month now, they don't seem too interested in even the apple. They still go for the greens. Sometimes I throw the, sunflower seeds or mealworms. So they will have something to scratch for, so they won't go for each other. I had that happen one time when they were confined. I would welcome any advice. As far as weight, they look about the same to me as they did going into the winter.