How long after a scare does a hen resume laying?

[SarahUCM]

I have a 9 mo old barred rock who was laying consistantly through the winter until... she had a close call with a visiting dog. Dog got a mouth full of feathers, but she came out of it without a scratch. I expected it to disrupt her laying, but its been almost 4 weeks!!

How long after a tramatic experience does it normally take for hens to resume laying?

 

[KellyHM]

It can take a month or 2. You also have to consider that a lot of chickens don't lay this type of year anyways due to the cold and/or molting.

 

[SarahUCM]

I thought about the time of year/cold thing, but she laid all through Dec and Jan... We're now getting daytime temps in the mid to upper 60's. As for molting, its possible but she hasn't shown any feather loss yet.

I guess I'll just have to chalk it up to her close encounter and hope she starts back up soon.

 

[tammyd57]

I think that really depends on the hen and just how traumatized she was by the attack. About 15 years ago I had a flock of EEs in a large pen at the back of my yard. I also had a Pit Bull watchdog on a 150' cable run along the side of the property. I had no idea a dog could chew through 1/4" steel cable until one day she did and broke down the door of the chicken pen and got in and chased all the hens around. She killed 2 of them, but most of them got out of the pen and escaped to the trees in my yard. 2 hens were still in the pen when I got home, had no injuries or missing feathers. One never laid again the other took almost 2 months to start laying. The rest were back to laying in just a few days.

*That same day I replaced the 1/4" cable with 1/2" cable and never had that problem again.