My chickens have pressed the pause button?

[donaltman3]

Not sure what is going on... my 3 chickens have all stopped laying eggs. They are all young approximately 6 months old. I have one other chicken that is approximately 4 months old that hasn't started to lay and has been with them for several months.. they are all friendly towards each other. I have no other chickens besides these 4. They are fed Purina Layena Pellets Premium Poultry Feed, and also bird seed I throw down as treat to keep them stirring their coop floor.
They get plenty of fresh vegetation and scraps from my kitchen and from my garden. The only thing I could think that might have triggered this was that they went a little while without water.. I have a huge 5 gallon automatic water system set up for them that usually I top off once a week. There is also water source outside their coop.. I missed my usual top off day and when I did check it had run out. It has also rained every day for weeks and I have some pans and such outside for their treats that hold rain water they could/should have been smart enough to drink from. Other than that nothing has changed.. Why would/could they have just all of a sudden stopped laying. I was getting 2 eggs one day 3 the next like clock work for a month. It has been almost 2 weeks of no eggs since around the same time as their waterer running out. It has been hot.. I live in south Georgia.

The coop is inside a fenced 15x15 area that the chickens say in.. with no hiding places they could be stashing the eggs. I bring a lot of supplemental vegetation inside the pen for them. They also have crushed oyster shells available at all times.

 

[BYCforlife]

Hello!

Chickens normally start laying at 6-7 months- how long have they been laying for?
Did you get them as pullets or day olds? If they were laying when you got them, they may have stopped because their housing changed.

 

[donaltman3]

Hello!

Chickens normally start laying at 6-7 months- how long have they been laying for?
Did you get them as pullets or day olds? If they were laying when you got them, they may have stopped because their housing changed.

I had them for a little over 2 months with them laying just fine... their housing hasn't changed. I did get them as pullets and to my surprise one lay an egg the evening I had gotten them. The other two began laying a day or so after that. (2 are a really pretty golden color that lay light olive colored eggs and the other is a blue colored hens that lays greyish blue color..I was told all three are easter eggers... my fourth is a dark red color EE... I can't wait to see what color she lays.)

 

[Embalmergirl]

I know with my girls when there's a change in weather then there's a change in their laying habits. Also, water is very important for egg production. Even though it was only a day without water, I've found that chickens are very sensitive to a change in their normal schedule/food & water supply. I found out the hard way & had a week of bad eggs from one of my girls.

 

[donaltman3]

I know with my girls when there's a change in weather then there's a change in their laying habits. Also, water is very important for egg production. Even though it was only a day without water, I've found that chickens are very sensitive to a change in their normal schedule/food & water supply. I found out the hard way & had a week of bad eggs from one of my girls.

Thanks for the input... It has been suggested it is just the heat to me by others.. but honestly this is the mildest summer I can remember in a long time. Usually we have 100 plus days in the summer with rain once a week or two.... here lately it has been in the 80's-90's with rain almost daily. I don't think they ever ran completely out of water... I think their main water source ran out and maybe they didn't use the other water available to them.. they never have had to before. I wanted to prove to myself they weren't just hiding the eggs...(I don't think I could miss it but I need to prove it to myself now) so they got confined to the coop.. I'll do this for a few days and see if we have any eggs.
They seem so happy.. not sure why this is going on.

 

[donaltman3]

Update.. it has been 2 months approximately with no eggs. It was a quick sudden stop from all three of my chickens.

Nothing has changed in their life... they were doing fine for a good while (they are young and have been producing consistently before they stopped.)

I've added day light spectrum bulb and increased their light time by 3 additional hours in the early morning. I've made sure they are getting plenty of layer food and they have calcium via crushed oyster shell available at all times. I've been searching the 15x20 run area and coop like a forensic team for broken/crushed shells or hidden eggs to no avail. I really have no clue what else to do. I see little feathers here and there but nothing to suggest a real molt like I've seen in pictures.. my birds look normal. They act normal outside of not laying. I've recently been upping their protein via extra seed and also cooked fish and meat/bean scrapes from the table.

They hens are about 8-10 months old now.

I have dogs that bark at them while on a chain.. but that has been happening the same couple of time a day for 5 minutes each time since they were chicks and it didn't affect them the whole time they were young and through them actually laying. (They are small inside dogs but we let them out for about 10-15 minutes a few times a day away from the chickens in their own area of the yard... they do bark but never get close and are just barking randomly not directly at the chickens.)

Not thinking predators either.. haven't seen anything to suggest something getting in..

 

[donaltman3]

 

[donaltman3]

Another update.... I decided to get sneaky and I slipped a few store purchased eggs into their nest box... two days later and they are sitting just as I left them. I am confident my hens just stopped laying and I do not have a predator problem.