Hens treated for mites - not laying at all

[DraperFlock]

Hi there - so we have a flock of 14 hens. We started noticing their feathers falling out, egg production reduced, and realized they had mites. We treated them with permectin spray, cleaned out the coop thoroughly. Now, they are barely laying anything. Maybe 2-4 eggs a day. Before we treated them we were still getting 7-8 eggs. When they were healthy, we had at least 12-13 daily. The chickens have only been laying for one year, they were born last June. We are trying to figure out if they are laying nothing now because we caught the mites too late and they are too sick. Is there an expected period of time when they recover from them? Any input is greatly appreciated!

 

[Judy]

This is an excellent product for mites and is commonly used, but I've never heard this complaint before. I can think of several possible factors that could be contributing: It could just be due to approaching winter and shortening day length. Also, they could be possibly approaching molt time, depending on age, or just triggered by the stress of the bugs. If an infestation is severe, they can get sick and anemic, and can actually die from the bugs, so it may require some patience for them to recover, depending how bad it was.