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The cedar was my first though too. Your cedar is in the nestboxes, right? You may have used it from day 1, but they probably haven't been spending any time in their nestboxes until the last couple of months, when they started laying. Being in the small boxes with the cedar chips may be causing them problems. Also, the heat lamps may be doing something to the cedar too.
Where do you live? We don't use the heatlamps anymore for our chickens - I know I'm in a warm climate, but our chickens are not kept in an enclosed coop either. They're in a 3-sided shelter and do just fine when the temps are at 31 degrees. Unless your temps inside the coop are extremely cold, your chickens may do better without heatlamps. They'd get more rest at night, which can help their immunity - when I did try to use heatlamps at night, I noticed the chickens were always getting up-and-about to eat, drink, etc - they didn't seem to realize it was sleeptime.
The cedar was my first though too. Your cedar is in the nestboxes, right? You may have used it from day 1, but they probably haven't been spending any time in their nestboxes until the last couple of months, when they started laying. Being in the small boxes with the cedar chips may be causing them problems. Also, the heat lamps may be doing something to the cedar too.
Where do you live? We don't use the heatlamps anymore for our chickens - I know I'm in a warm climate, but our chickens are not kept in an enclosed coop either. They're in a 3-sided shelter and do just fine when the temps are at 31 degrees. Unless your temps inside the coop are extremely cold, your chickens may do better without heatlamps. They'd get more rest at night, which can help their immunity - when I did try to use heatlamps at night, I noticed the chickens were always getting up-and-about to eat, drink, etc - they didn't seem to realize it was sleeptime.
