need help my 9mo buff orphinton hens are not laying

[floridachickhatcher]

not sure if im posting in right section but anyway i ordered 28 buff orphinton hens from meyer hatchery last year and i got them in July and well here it is April of this year and only 8 of the buffs are laying eggs we know they arent hiding the eggs and my mom gave them some iron cause she saw they were not eatting alot and still nothing they started eatting more though but still and they get plenty of water theres 20 gals in the pen with them and everything is clean i told my mom im wondering if we got a bad batch of chickens from them i mean they might be inbreded or are defective maybe they were born with issues or parents had issues anyway my mom is going to start testing them and when one hasnt laid a egg in 3 days she is going to toss them over into the non laying pen and sadly we will have to sell them if they dont start laying within the next month its really sad cause they are such a beautiful chicken and i thought they were suppose to be good egg layers does anyone know whats wrong with them?

 

[jecombs]

Are they molting? That's the only thing I can think of that might cause them not to lay...

 

[donrae]

Can you post pics of the birds in question? Are their combs small and pale or plump and red? What are you feeding them?



And, I'm far from the punctuation police, but one run on sentance is very hard to read. Try a period now and then, it'll give us readers a chance to pause and breathe

 

[edible_chicken]

how big is there coop/run? are they free-range? what type of feed do you offer them? i have five BO's from meyer and they lay an egg a day and they suppose to lay only 3-4 a week!

 

[HEChicken]

If you are getting 8 eggs a day you undoubtedly have more than 8 laying hens. You might have as many as 12 hens laying 3-4 eggs each per week, but still only get 8 eggs on any given day.

You haven't said what and how much you are feeding them. Have you checked for parasites? Lice? Mites etc? Is it possible something else is getting in and eating eggs (I'm thinking egg-eating snakes, which you probably have in FL)? Or even a 2-legged predator that is helping him or herself to eggs when you are not home?