How to STOP hens from laying??

[technodoll]

I really want my girls to take a break for a few weeks, heck all winter if they want...

I just dewormed the flock yesterday and have to toss out 100+ eggs the next two weeks if they continue to lay at this rate.

The laying girls are all sexlinks, I'm their 3rd home and don't know how old they are. I suspect this is their 2nd winter, even if they are each giving me an egg a day and hardly miss a beat. They're laying machines but I don't want them to wear themselves out!

They get no additional light, very little layer food (mostly a recipe of turkey growth crumbles, corn and a bit of layer crumbles, big hearty warm breakfasts that I make them every morning plus lots of healthy treats) and are confined to the coop now that we're in a deep freeze.

I really want them to conserve their energy keeping warm and not laying!

Any suggestions??

 

[they'reHISchickens]

I think anything you do to interfere with the natural order of things is likely to backfire healthwise in your hens. Count your blessings they are laying, then let them go and toss the eggs.

 

[technodoll]

Sigh. I guess so.

I love these girls, just wish they would give themselves a little "holiday break"!

 

[Akane]

If they are laying daily they are healthy. Anything you do to stop it means depriving them of what they need to be healthy so they don't have enough energy to make eggs. Just make sure they are getting plenty of good feed and water and they don't need a break. When they are ready they will molt and stop laying for awhile if they need to before starting back at it twice as hard. If you got them this fall they may even have just molted prior to that.

 

[technodoll]

Yeah, I got them in September (I think?) but they were all fully feathered so I don't know if they molted this year or not...

They seem pretty healthy bar one hen who has a runny nose, I'm hoping her immune system will kick in soon.

Someone's been laying a thin-shelled, sandpapery egg the past 2 weeks and I have a feeling it's her.

I can't bring her in the house since the "hen hospital" is full with a broody hen and chicks about to hatch PLUS a 9-week old cockerel recuperating from a severe worm infestation.

 

[Buckguy20]

Can't you boil the eggs and feed them back to them? I wouldn't think the wormer would affect them.

 

[technodoll]

that's what I thought too but no, you can't as the wormer is designed to work in one dose and then do its thing over 2 weeks, if you feed the eggs back to the hens it keeps dosing them with meds and makes the parasites more resistant to the treatment in the end. Or something like that.

so aggravating!

 

[dacdeihl]

Can you cook them up and feed them to dogs? That seems like it would be ok. Anyone know about that?

 

[dacdeihl]

If you can't feed them to other pets, then save them for the garden in the spring. I know that would be alot of space in the fridge, but you can feeze them... take the shell off and put them in bags in the freezer. Then in the spring you can till them into your garden. Save the shells and put them in to.
Frozen eggs can last up to 7 months in the freezer.

 

[technodoll]

I'm about to do just that... tomorrow is day 3 after treatment so whatever ends up in the eggs can't be THAT bad... would a tiny bit of wormer be that bad for my huge dogs?

Hmmm. thanks for the flashlight, i just can't keep throwing out those eggs it's killing me!

To the dogs they will go.

Yey!