I have a chicken mystery on which I was hoping some of you might help me shed some light.
A little background: As of this spring, I had a very healthy flock of year-old layers (10 of them). We had some predator issues in the spring which reduced our flock to 4. In July I got 4 new girls who were a few months old. I think these girls came with an illness, because within a month of bringing them home, I had lost 2 of the new ones and 1 of my original girls. A friend of mine got 3 birds from the same place (a local-ish lady) a week or so after me, and hers seemed to be a bit sickly, as well. She also had a couple of birds get sick shortly after getting the new girls. I think we deduced that it was probably cocci and after the original incident, we lost no more birds to sickness and the health of the survivors seemed to improve. After I was sure the illness had subsided, I took 5 layers from a relative who needed to offload them. These girls are the same age as my original layers. So I now have eight 1.5 year olds and two 7 month olds.
Here is where the mystery lies: we havent had a single egg since August and neither has my friend. At first I chalked it up to the stress of predation and the integration of strange birds. Then five of the girls went through a molt and they are now out of that and I have 2 in molt right now. The new birds have never laid a single egg. My friend and I are so confused. Why are we not seeing any eggs?? We were both consistantly getting eggs until the new girls were introduced (I was selling 3 dozen/week). Ive tried keeping them penned, in case they were laying somewhere outside (they free-range during the day) but still no eggs. Ive tried checking the boxes every few hours in case I have an egg-eater nothing.
Any ideas? Im stumped.
x-posted in Diseases
A little background: As of this spring, I had a very healthy flock of year-old layers (10 of them). We had some predator issues in the spring which reduced our flock to 4. In July I got 4 new girls who were a few months old. I think these girls came with an illness, because within a month of bringing them home, I had lost 2 of the new ones and 1 of my original girls. A friend of mine got 3 birds from the same place (a local-ish lady) a week or so after me, and hers seemed to be a bit sickly, as well. She also had a couple of birds get sick shortly after getting the new girls. I think we deduced that it was probably cocci and after the original incident, we lost no more birds to sickness and the health of the survivors seemed to improve. After I was sure the illness had subsided, I took 5 layers from a relative who needed to offload them. These girls are the same age as my original layers. So I now have eight 1.5 year olds and two 7 month olds.
Here is where the mystery lies: we havent had a single egg since August and neither has my friend. At first I chalked it up to the stress of predation and the integration of strange birds. Then five of the girls went through a molt and they are now out of that and I have 2 in molt right now. The new birds have never laid a single egg. My friend and I are so confused. Why are we not seeing any eggs?? We were both consistantly getting eggs until the new girls were introduced (I was selling 3 dozen/week). Ive tried keeping them penned, in case they were laying somewhere outside (they free-range during the day) but still no eggs. Ive tried checking the boxes every few hours in case I have an egg-eater nothing.
Any ideas? Im stumped.
x-posted in Diseases