New chicken lover

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Chirpie1

Chirpie1

Hatching
9 Years
Oct 10, 2010
3
0
7
Hi all! My husband and I just got into chickens last year and are having a blast! We have mostly game hens and one barred rock. We let then free range during the day, then in the coop at night for protection from the many predators. We love watching the chickens and their many antics and delicious, natural eggs! We also own 3 Arabian horses which we do long, fun trail rides on.

Now, for our problem:
We started with a young game rooster and we were getting about 4-8 eggs a day. It was great! We were selling eggs to help pay for the little bit of scratch feed the chickens get daily. Unfortunately, the young rooster died of some illness around June. Within a few weeks, we noticed egg production had dropped. We thought it might have something to do with the incredibly hot and humid summer we had (more so than usual for north Florida). But, now the weather has changed and we still are not getting more than 1-2 eggs a day and sometimes, we get none! We have a total of 9 hens. Could it be our older rooster isn't "performing"? I thought chickens would laid eggs without a rooster, though. Their diet is all the bugs and vegetation they can eat while they are out, plus some scratch food. They have access to clean water at all times as well as calcium supplement, and we just started giving them an all grain laying crumble without hormones or anything. Any ideas?


No our of life is lost that is spent in the saddle-Churchill
 
While the loss of your rooster could have stressed your hens a bit (if he was especially loved), I seriously doubt that he was the cause of your egg loss. Maybe he was the one who helped herd (or escort) them into the coop come laying time, and now they're laying elsewhere in hiddin nests. Or your guess about the heat and humidity may have been it, as I read MANY posts about egg production dropping this past summer.
Having a rooster or not (in itself) has no impact on egg production though, only impacting whether eggs are fertile or not.
And now of course most everyone is seeing another drop in production due to molting and reduced daylight hours (@16 hours of light is needed for good egg production). For some reason, I'd bet that they're laying elsewhere though.

ETA - Oh! And Welcome to the Forum!
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No our of life is lost that is spent in the saddle-Churchill
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Welcome to BYC. Hens dont need a rooster to lay eggs. There are many things that can cause egg production to drop; decrease in daylight hours, increases and decreases in temperatures, molt, internal and external parasites, diseases, changes in feed, crowding, picking/pecking on each other, pecking order issues and a host of other things I cant think of right now. This is the time of the year that egg production slows due to loss of daylight and changing temps. I live just north of Jax and I'm going through the same thing....half my hens are in molt and have stopped laying eggs. Two or three more wont lay because of fluctuating temps. One day I might get 2, the next day 4, but it varies each day. Good luck.
 
Thanks everyone for welcoming us and for your input. Yes, it has taken me a while to get back on the forum....we're busy! We went to an auction a few weeks ago and bought a new game rooster and game hen, just to see if that wuold help with our egg production. We also met the nice folks from The Ranch at Waldo (byc folks!) and they gave us some good advice about egg prodcution.

I love looking at some of the member's photos of their chickens. I'd like to post some of my photos, but alas, I am very computer illiterate! I'll keep trying.

In the meantime, all you yankees can keep your cold weather up there! 19 degrees in Florida is entirely too cold!!
barnie.gif
 
Thanks everyone for welcoming us and for your input. Yes, it has taken me a while to get back on the forum....we're busy! We went to an auction a few weeks ago and bought a new game rooster and game hen, just to see if that wuold help with our egg production. We also met the nice folks from The Ranch at Waldo (byc folks!) and they gave us some good advice about egg prodcution.

I love looking at some of the member's photos of their chickens. I'd like to post some of my photos, but alas, I am very computer illiterate! I'll keep trying.

In the meantime, all you yankees can keep your cold weather up there! 19 degrees in Florida is entirely too cold!!
barnie.gif
 

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