Missing eggs and small eggs....

[diamondsilkies]

OK, so I know I might be getting a little anxious, but I was wondering if anyone had some input on this.

I have two serama hens that are about 7 months, a polish hen that is about 9 months old, and a silkie hen that is about 7 months as well. None of them are laying, and all should be. My serama girls are squatting for the roosters, and have been for a few weeks. I know silkies can take a while, so I'm not too concerned about her, but I don't know much about polish.

Part of the delay could be either a) it's getting colder and the days are getting shorter, or b) we just had a lice problem that I fixed a couple months ago. All the girls that stopped laying for that are back on track, though.

On another note, I have a cream legbar hen who started laying right before the lice. She stopped laying during the lice thing, but has started up again. However, her eggs aren't that much bigger than my older silkies' eggs. She is a little small compared to my other hens, like my australorp. Is she just a smaller breed, or do you think they will get bigger?

Thanks!

 

[venymae]

I don't know about the other things, but your legbars eggs will most likely get bigger.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Those four are decorative breeds, not production breeds. They tend to start laying later than production breeds and can be more affected by the days getting shorter. Another thing is that each pullet is an individual. Breeds have tendencies but you have to have enough of that breed for averages to mean something. You don't. Some individuals can start much earlier than breed average, some will start much later. You may have just gotten some that start later.

As long as they are acting healthy I don't see anything to really get concerned about. I know how frustrating it is, I've had some wait until they were 9 months old to start, but in this patience is probably your friend.

 

[diamondsilkies]

Well, I went out to the coop today and found a tiny little white egg in my younger pen. Not sure if it was one of the seramas or the silkie, but one of them laid! It was rather dark when I went out there, so tomorrow I'll have a look around to see if I can see any in the nest.

It's about the size of my other serama eggs, though, and my silkie hasn't really been interested in the nest I put out there, so I'm suspecting it was one of my serama girls, but we'll see.