My hen stopped laying approximately 2 weeks ago. Please help!

[deborah]

We have an Easter Egg hen that stopped laying about 2 weeks ago. I wouldn't know if another hen stopped laying, but she is the only hen that lays blue/green eggs.

She acts fine. She's eating. She runs around. I saw her dirt bathing today. Her vent is pink and moist. We checked for mites, but didn't see anything. We did notice some stubs for feathers on her neck and we have seen a few of her feathers around, but she is not noticably bare anywhere. She is our only white chicken, so it's easy to tell her feathers.

My husband thinks she may be molting, but it's the wrong time of year and she's not quite one year old yet. She just started laying a few months ago, and she was pretty regular. About 2 eggs every 3 days.

She grew up with a rooster, but we had to dispatch him a few months ago. We introduced a new rooster about a month ago. He's about the same age as her. That is the only change I can think of, but he's not a real agressive rooster and doesn't seem to bother her any more than any of the other hens. She is one of 14 hens in our flock (all the others lay brown eggs).

I don't know what else to look for. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

 

[beerguzzler]

My EE did the exact same thing a while back. She laid an egg about every 1.5 days for 2 months after her first egg and then she just stopped for 2-3 weeks and then started up again. I can't promise that will happen to you but that was my experience. I had 14 hens and 1 rooster

 

[can you hear me now?]

I do beleive that chickens go through a mini molt sometimes and maybe that is what is happening to your hen. A fellow I work with had had that problem and when their spots of feathers grew back he said they resumed laying.

 

[Mahonri]

My white leghorn and my light brown leghorn quit on me two weeks ago and NOTHING.

I was getting 5 eggs a week from each of them.

The white leghorn gave me a shell-less egg last Friday, but nothing else.

My EE quit for about two weeks but now she is back to every other day again.

Fickle hens.

We got 9 out of 14 hens today but nothing from my leghorns.

 

[FractalFarmer]

One of our EE's also stopped laying about 2 weeks ago. We've been worried that she is eggbound. She sits in a nest box for awhile almost every day, but doesn't produce an egg. Otherwise she is acting normally, eating, drinking, foraging, dusting, etc..., and she is getting calcium in oyster shell & egg shells. She is about 7 1/2 months old, and her hatch-mate is laying almost every day. Hopefully it is just a normal EE thing or a mini-molt

 

[AdiosCowboy]

Must be going around. Except in my case my EE is the only one still laying regularly. I was getting six eggs a week from all three of my chickens, but it's been more than a week since my Cochin last laid and the Wyandotte is just doing whatever she feels like, apparently. Darn fickle chickens.

 

[Jilara]

Boy, do I know this one. Juanita started laying in January and was doing 6 eggs a week. Then, a couple weeks ago, bam, she just stopped laying, and has been acting broody, to boot. Keeps trying to spontaneously generate chicks from straw. When I shoo her out of the box, she is annoyed as hell, but eats up a storm. Then, first chance, she's back acting broody and still not laying. I don't know what to think. She's a mutt Ancona, and has no roosters in her life, though she wants one very badly, to judge by the squatting.

 

[JennsPeeps]

I have a BR that laid for 2 weeks in Dec-Jan, quit for 6 weeks, and started up again in March for 2 weeks.

During the 6-week break we treated her for cocci. She started laying again once she was healthier. Unfortunately, we *didn't* realize that she also had roundworms (which often co-exist with cocci). She died yesterday morning. We realized too late that she was sick with a heavy load of worms. Up until last weekend, she, too, was eating, drinking & dust-bathing normally.

Check your bird for worms & diseases. It's possible she may have internal parasites or digestive disorders that prevent her from getting the necessary nutrition for egg-laying.

 

[deborah]

Yahoo! She laid an egg today! Thank you for all the responses. It was a great reassurance to know this is not unusual.

But we are leaving for vacation tomorrow. I have someone taking care of the chickens while we are gone. I will have to ask her let us know if our EE continues laying.

This could be happening with our other hens too, but we would never know since they all lay brown eggs. I don't know a good way to figure out who laid what unless one of us is actually in the hen house when one of them lays.