I did something really, really wrong.
Let me start with . . . I had one Sussex roo as well as 12 reds that were already well established, 8 of them were about 11 months old and averaging 7 eggs each day and the other 4 were only three months old and not yet laying. Everyone getting along nicely and I have all of them in an indoor coop in my barn as it gets pretty cold (Canadian Winter).
Last week I picked up 11 more sussex which are 9 months old and they were laying until we brought them home to my place. My indoor coop is really just a converted horse stall. All I did was used chicken wire to cage them in. The stall walls are just over 4' high and the chicken wire is also 4' high so I surely thought that 8' of fencing was enough to keep the chickens. It's always been enough for the reds and the one roo I have. (I've never had an escape or even an attempt at a break out) Inside the coop I have a quarantine area which is about 4' wide by 8' long which I use whenever I get new chickens. Same as in the rest of the coop, the walls are at least 8' high, but there's a gap of about 6" between the top of chicken wire and the open ceiling and rafters.
I think you see where I am going with this. As soon as I released the 11 new sussex into the quarantine pan, they flew up and into the rafters. I didn't realize that they were not clipped and because of that they proved to be excellent flyers. I've actually never seen a chicken fly so well. As soon as that happened, I proceeded to add a chicken wire roof to the quarantine pan and proceeded to round up the now free chickens. This is where the "I did something really really wrong" comes in. The whole ordeal was very stressful on the girls obviously. Because the whole barn is an open roof, they got into the donkeys. Donkey's chased them out, as it appears they don't like to share their living quarters with a bird. Some got into the goat pan and same as in the donkey's they got chased out. They got into every nook and cranny and although I was able to catch most by hand just by turning off all barn lights, there were at least three that I had no choice but to use the fishing net on. Eventually, all eleven were caught and put in the new and improved chicken coop, but not until after being completely stressed out with the whole ordeal.
As I said at the beginning, they were laying when I bought them, but now of course they've stopped completely. I've not seen an egg out of them in over a week. I've been feeding them a standard layer mix, leaving them alone and not bugging them too much. I've even kept the kids away from them, but the eggs have not come back. I do have artificial light for them as well and on any day they get at least 14 hours of light. Is there any hope or is there anything I can be doing to encourage them to lay again?
As of right now the two flocks are still separated and seem to be getting along nicely. No reaction or extra chirping from either side of the coop. The reds are still laying like champs and they pullets are due to start laying soon.
Thanks,
