Laying vs Moving

[THunter]

I have a flock of 40 laying hens that I relocated to a new part of town last Thursday. Prior to that I was gettin roughly 30 eggs per day with 15-17 being white from my 20 white leghorns. As of today (5 days since the move) I have gotten 9 eggs and only one of those were white. Ever see a move upset birds so bad that they just quit laying? How in the world, if an egg moves downstream every 25 hours, do they just QUIT? They get the same food, have more space, and now get to free-range at least 8 hours per day, but they have just gone on strike. If things don't pick up by Saturday, it's off to the stew pot in groups of 5 starting Monday morning.

 

[fried green eggs]

Yea but, it's not home to them yet

lol

 

[Leslieb118]

I definitely would give them time to get used to the new place. In my opinion, Saturday is a little early to send them to the stew pot, lol. It's not like you could talk to them ahead of time to prepare them for the move. To them, they just up and went and now they have to get accustomed to their new surroundings. Good luck and hope you get eggs soon!

 

[Terrik]

I agree Saturday is to soon to head to the "stew pot". When I moved mine it took a couple of them a few weeks to adjust.

 

[dainerra]

Any kind of scare or upset can make them stop laying. It can take weeks, even up to a month, for them to settle in again, depending on how scared they are.
It's a defense mechanism. Birds will only lay if they feel safe, a trait left-over from their wild ancestors. It takes a lot of food and energy to produce eggs, so it would be bad to waste it at the wrong time or if predator danger would lead to lost eggs. It's the same instinct that makes hens look for a dark safe place to lay their eggs.

 

[THunter]

Got zero today. Times running out.

 

[THunter]

UPDATE

Two days after the previous post I went over to the farm with a bag of frozen nuggets and held them up for the chickens to see. I told them "eggs or nuggets, your choice".

The next day they laid 18 and we've gotten between 28 and 32 everyday since. Might want to try that sometime, chickens are apparently smarter than most of us think.