High-strung hen not laying

[hagoesch]

Hello! Snowdrop is one of my favorite girls of our eight-month-old flock of seven. I believe she's a Favaucana, but not positive as she was among a rare breed chick assortment from My Pet Chicken earlier this year. She's always been a bit "high-strung" in that she runs in and out of their mobile coop, stopping inside a minute or two to dig around in the nesting area. She had been consistently laying beautiful pale sage green eggs, but lately I think she never successfully achieves her goal. It has been fairly hot (highs upper 80s, low 90s F) and a few strong storms have rolled through, so possibly it's stress related? She's also a "favorite" of our cockerel, Crownan -- not sure if that's contributing. Otherwise she looks healthy, acting normal. Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

[azygous]

At your latitude, chickens will be tapering off laying due to decreasing length of daylight. That can be one reason why she's shirking her egg duties. It can be from heat stress, also. It can also be from stress from being mercilessly targeted by the rooster.

 

[hagoesch]

At your latitude, chickens will be tapering off laying due to decreasing length of daylight. That can be one reason why she's shirking her egg duties. It can be from heat stress, also. It can also be from stress from being mercilessly targeted by the rooster.

Thank you! The hours of daylight are certainly shrinking as we inch toward autumn, but I'm guessing that at least for now it was the heat/storm/cockerel stress. Today was dry and much cooler and, naturally, she decided to make a fool of me by laying an egg. In fact, it was our first day of all six ladies laying! Apparently they read my posts... CHEERS.