new chickens in flock

[shmeggs]

I introduced 7 new chickens into my flock now the hens I already had are not laying. do you think they are stressed and everybody need their nerves to calm down.

 

[Wyandottes7]

There are many reasons why hens will stop laying. Certainly, the stress of introducing new birds could cause them to not lay. I'm not sure where you are, but in the United States, daylight hours are also decreasing. Chickens won't lay well without 14 hours of light a day. This may have caused your birds to stop laying. Is there any place where your birds could be hiding their eggs? Another possiblity is that they are going to molt. How old were your original hens? At about one year of age, most birds stop laying for a couple months and molt. Every year after, they'll molt again, usually in the fall and winter. During molting, most hens don't lay.

 

[shmeggs]

im in southern va. my original hens are around a year old.

 

[sandman55]

It's good to introduce new chickens to the flock after dark by placing them on the perch and letting them wake up together.

 

[aoifehen1]

 

[aoifehen1]

Above is my welsummer hen. I introduced her to the flock when she was a young hen, and at the start she was bullied but after a while she was the head of the pecking order. When I put new hens on the perch beside her at night, a few days later my welsummer hen stopped laying. I have 2 hen houses so what I did was let the new hens live in one, my welsummer and some others live in the other hen house. They would not be together at night, but during the day I would let them outside together. My welsummer soon started laying again, and when the hens were used to each other I put them in the same hen house. This worked for me, and I hope it works for you