My Good Laying Hens have Stopped Laying - please help!

[elliemae0]

My husband and I are fairly new to chicken farming (Backyard style). We've had 9 chickens for 1 1/2 years now, a mix of Partridge cochins and Buff Orphingtons, and one "Mother" hen, a Rhode Island Red. They've laid terrific - until now. In the spring of this year, we purchased about 12 new chicks. Two of those White leghorns, (have just started laying 2 weeks ago. As far as we know, the other new chicks are not laying yet. These two white leghorns are laying in the same nesting boxes/chicken house, as all the others. Now, all of a sudden, we're only getting about 3-4 eggs/day from the others. We know this, because the others only lay brown eggs. So, it appears they have just stopped laying.

To make matters more interesting, however, when my husband went out to collect eggs today, there was egg yolk all over 3 of the eggs we did get today, with a very small piece of brown shell attached to one of the white eggs. The shell did not come from any of the remaining eggs we collected, so we know that another had been laid, broken, and eaten - by something! I know that snakes will eat them, but wouldn't a snake eat ALL of the eggs in the nest? This brings us to wonder if chickens actually "break into" eggs, (since we know from dropping them inadvertantly, they really love them). Could they have stopped laying out of "protest" for the new chicks laying, or would the chickens themselves be poking into the eggs? They've been together now, for at least 4 months, so they should be very used to each other. Please let me know your thoughts on this, as we're really at a loss.....Thanks!

 

[enola]

Generally when chickens eat eggs in the nest, there is a mess in the nest. Or like you found, yolk and shell stuck on other eggs. So, yes you may have an egg eater.

If it is hot where you live (highs in the 90's and still hot at night) this will also affect their production. The hotter it gets, the less eggs you will get......

 

[pkeeler]

If you can watch them, see if one of the leghorns are guarding the nest boxes. If one of them suddenly figured out it was dominant, she could be blocking the old hens from getting in and laying. This would probably send the hens to who knows where to lay.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This is another active thread on this topic. Some good discussion here.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=218236

From your description, you either have an egg eater or you have a predator eating the eggs and the hens are cleaning up after the predator, possibly a rat, skunk, or possum. My guess strongly favors you have an egg eating chicken.

 

[tcwk]

Yeah, to me it sounds like you have an egg eater, it most likely picked up the taste for eggs when you have dropped them. If you ever drop one just keep them away from the broken egg and clean it up very fast. All i can say is keep an eye out for the egg eater(s).

 

[acbear93]

Do you have your chickens fenced in? Or are they allowed to roam free on your property? Ours were allowed to roam free, and for the longest time they would lay in the nesting boxes, but then some of them discovered more private spots in our yard to lay their eggs unbeknownst to me, we went from getting 14 eggs a day to 4 or 5, and I was like, what the heck??? Started looking around, and WOW, we found nests that had 20 some eggs in them here and there...We put up a fence around the coop then, and just allow them to roam free when we choose to let them out, usually in the evening around suppertime, after I have collected the eggs for the day. I believe this is how some of my girls went broody, hiding their eggs in the yard, barn, wherever...Though, if you see yolk and broken shells, you may have an eater which I have also experienced...Do you have oyster shell? That helps thicken the shells so they are not easily broken by accident in the nest, and then eaten up...then when the broken egg gets eaten up, they get so crazy and its possible they break other eggs while gobbling up the first mess...I would say, try and collect as often as you can, add some oyster shell to their diet, and it will pass...good luck!

 

[A2SciTeach]

I just went through the same thing and want to say, just stick with it - you may never figure out why they stopped, they will just start up (assuming that they actually stopped laying - that's a very easy thing to check, just keep them confined in an area where you can more easily observe them and check for eggs often.)

I think my stress about them not producing was stressing them out.

After going through the obvious reasons mentioned here and on multiple threads I just decided they'll do what they're going to do. After 3 weeks of only 2 to 3 eggs a day, they started laying again, and I'm back up to 5 to 6 a day. By all means, check out all the reasons given in these threads, make any corrections that you can. Once you've corrected all that can be corrected you'll have to leave it up to the chickens.