My chickens havent laid an egg in 5 months!

[Sandfly45]

Hi I have 5 pet chooks who are all about 2 yrs old (2 Orpingtons, 2 Faverolles, 1 silkie). They have always been good layers but have not been laying eggs for the past 4 months! It's winter in nz at the moment so I thought they might be too cold but all my friends hens are laying.. . Should I be concerned?

 

[Sandfly45]

Whoops I put 4 months in my post but its definitely 5 months, last egg was in February

 

[menchelke]

I dunno what you feed, etc, but I live in Arizona in USA, and I feed mine cracked corn and black fly larva or meal worm larva with their winter feed, like a 32 oz yogurt cup of it every day, and same 32 oz cup of commercial feed. This was for 4 laying hens and a rooster, and mine where only down about month and half during coldest part of the winter, and then back to laying. This was during time a lot of people on youtube were saying commercial feed was to blame for no eggs. Mine were laying on the same feed, just with the cracked corn and the meal worms larva (dried).

 

[NatJ]

Hi I have 5 pet chooks who are all about 2 yrs old (2 Orpingtons, 2 Faverolles, 1 silkie). They have always been good layers but have not been laying eggs for the past 4 months! It's winter in nz at the moment so I thought they might be too cold but all my friends hens are laying.. . Should I be concerned?

I am not sure whether you should be concerned or not.

It is common for chickens to stop laying in the fall as the days get short, which is also when they usually molt (lose their feathers and grow new ones.)

They typically start laying again as the days get longer in the spring.

Some breeds take a longer break than others, and the same hens may take a longer break when they are older as compared with when they were younger.

Providing artificial light (to make the days seem longer) can cause them to lay eggs during much of the winter. Sometimes just having them near a street light, or the windows of a house, or a busy street, can provide enough extra light that they lay when some other hens do not.

Those are all reasons that you might not need to be concerned.

But chickens may also stop laying eggs if they are fed the wrong food, or if they are sick, or if they have parasites, or sometimes if they are badly stressed. Any of those would be a reason for concern.

It is probably worth looking carefully at the chickens to see if they seem healthy, look for parasites like mites or lice, and check whether anything is likely to cause extra stress. It may be worth getting their droppings checked for parasites by a vet, or it may not be worth the cost & effort if they seem healthy otherwise.

"Wrong food" problems are usually when people feed something like straight corn, which is not enough to keep a hen healthy. But it can also be food that was stored wrong and got moldy, or food that was manufactured wrong because of some kind of error at the mill. If you think it might be the food, ask what your friends are feeding their hens (because that is obviously fine), then maybe try a bag of something different than what you have been using (to see if it helps).

 

[Tonyroo]

Hen that are past 2 years old definitely slow down in egg production and weather does affect there hormones. It apply for most breeds.

 

[sybonbon]

Hi I have 5 pet chooks who are all about 2 yrs old (2 Orpingtons, 2 Faverolles, 1 silkie). They have always been good layers but have not been laying eggs for the past 4 months! It's winter in nz at the moment so I thought they might be too cold but all my friends hens are laying.. . Should I be concerned?

Chickens need at least 15 hours of daylight to lay. Do they have that?

 

[Tahai]

Chickens need at least 15 hours of daylight to lay. Do they have that?

@sybonbon . This information is incorrect. Chickens generally need between 12 to 14 hours of light to lay. Some breeds are great winter layers and can lay with even shorter days, and some are better summer layers and require longer days. My Wyandottes and Barred Rocks generally start laying the end of January, beginning of February. From the beginning of blue hour in the morning to the end of blue hour at night is less than 12 hours at my latitude at that time of year.

 

[sybonbon]

@sybonbon . This information is incorrect. Chickens generally need between 12 to 14 hours of light to lay. Some breeds are great winter layers and can lay with even shorter days, and some are better summer layers and require longer days. My Wyandottes and Barred Rocks generally start laying the end of January, beginning of February. From the beginning of blue hour in the morning to the end of blue hour at night is less than 12 hours at my latitude at that time of year.

Oh I should have said, where I live. What's blue hour? Just did some research. This is a direct quote from Nutrena Research shows that chickens lay best when they receive about 15 hours of light daily. That the correct information I got.

 

[Tahai]

Blue hour is the time before sunrise and after sunset when you can still see fairly well. It follows before/after civil twilight. Think of it as that time of day when your mom called you in because it was dark out, and you yelled back "no it's not! I can still see my hands!" Here's a snapshot from an app I use on my phone that gives the time of all the different lights today.

 

[KyCoop]

I give my girls organic kale in the winter to replace the green grass and weeds the would be getting in the spring and summer.