My hens haven't laid in over a month

[kaitkait]

we have eight hens and over the past month or so we've only been receiving 4-5 eggs a day. three of our hens are white, I think they're white leghorns, and they were laying white eggs but now we don't get white eggs, only colored from our other hens.

they are about 8-9 months old. they were laying around 6 months, then they began eating their eggs so we tried to break the habit. we thought the white ones were just eating their own eggs but we never find any kind of residue in the boxes. they're nesting but we think they aren't laying. oh and we are feeding them layers and we do give them extra fruits and veggies, sometimes other things as treats. any suggestions or help??

they look like this

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Go back to basics. Feed just chicken feed, cutting out all treats and scratch.
Look for hiding places.
Follow them around in the morning to watch when they go to the nest to see what happens to the eggs.
At that age, properly fed leghorns should be laying nearly every day.

 

[Bine]

If you didn't worm them in the last three month try worming. After the worming try to feed them cold herbal tea like tyme, oregano or fennel tea in the morning and put some apple vinegar into the normal waterer. The herbal teas are natural antibiotics and the apple vinegar helps to balance the intestinal flora and is a good vitamin C source. Try to feed more minerals and easily digestible proteins. An cheep way to do that is to buy dog food w/o chicken. A spoon a day for every hen as addition to the layers/veggies meal.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Apple vinegar needs to be raw or organic to be of any benefit.

Layer feed has all the nutrients laying birds need in the proper percentages.

There's nothing wrong with feeding chicken to chickens, they're omnivores.

 

[Bine]

Oh.... i recommend that b/c egg eating and not laying maybe two symptoms one problem.... lack of nutrition. Since you feed layers the problem maybe the inside of the chicken... worms or a minor infection,

 

[yellowchicks]

Your 3 Leghorns look matured to be consistently laying an egg per hen per day. They are know to be the egg laying machines!

My guess is that either they decided to lay somewhere else, their eggs have been eaten by the chickens, low in nutrient, and/or need to be dewormed. Since other chickens are laying, maybe it is the first two reasons. Try to wake up early and watch them closely for a few days to see if they are laying, where are they laying, and what happen to those eggs. Listen for the egg songs as a clue for timing. If there are egg eaters, they would eat the eggs and shell, you have to watch them to find the culprits. I find it hard to believe that all three young Leghorns would stop laying at the same time.

In addition, do heed the advice from many others about deworm the chickens. In fact, deworm all the chickens, every 6 months. By the time you see worms in their poop or in the eggs, it has been infested severely already. When you deworm the chickens, you need to throw out the eggs for 24 days total. Since some of the chickens believe to be not laying anyway, this is a good time to do so. Look in other posts on BYC about the medication options and dosages.