Newbie from Atlantic Canada

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Brooksidesue

Brooksidesue

Chirping
9 Years
Jun 28, 2012
13
3
84
New-Brunswick, Canada
Hi Everyone, my name is Sue and I live in Atlantic (East Coast) Canada. I am new to the forum and new to chickens. My husband built me a wonderful Chicken "Room" with four individual "roosting/laying" rooms that have doors I can close if I want to. Each room has a waterer and feeder, roosting branch and nesting box. There's also a small "common" area and ramps from each room which lead to the outdoor run that is plenty big for our 11 hens and 1 rooster. Being very new, I don't even know the breed of my flock... When I have time, i will take some pics and post here so maybe someone can tell me what they are. My vet gave us a hen and rooster (I think the hen is a blue cochin), not sure if the rooster is the same, and we purchased 10 ready to lay hens from our feed store. After four weeks, we're still only getting 5 eggs a day, so they are not all laying yet. Does anyone know how long they take to lay when they are moved to a new location and supposedly "ready" to lay?

Looking forward to reading all the info on here as I have LOTS to learn.

Sue
 
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from New Mexico!

Make sure the new layers are getting enough protein in their diets, that they all have enough places to lay and oyster shell for hard egg shells. If it is warm where you are now, they may not be eating a lot due to the heat, so this may slow them down. Give them some time and they should be kicking out the eggs soon!
 
Welcome to BYC! They need time to adjust. I had a hen take a week til I started getting eggs from her. I was told she was already laying. But sure enough it took her a week to lay with me. So I guess it could depend on her. :) Good luck!
 
hi and :welcome

Sounds like a really great coop! Give the hens a week or two - and make sure they have oyster shell to eat if they need it.

Don't hesitate to ask any questions you might have, and enjoy the site. :D
 
Thanks for the welcome and advice. The new hens have been here 4 weeks now and as of yesterday, we're getting 6 eggs a day from 10 "red" laying hens and possibly one coming from our blue cochin, not sure tho. The heat is not an issue here as it's been quite cool yet here in Atlantic Canada, avg daily temps not exceeding 77 F and nights going down as low as 57-58 F. We've had quite a bit of rain this past week but mostly misting just one day of downpours.

We are feeding a growing mash along with some cracked corn. I bought some grit but am not sure how/when to use it and will pick up some oyster shell next time I'm at the feed store. Do I just add it to the feed mash? The feed store lady told me to wait until we have at least 80% of them laying before switching them to the layer mash, so they are still on the grower.

Someone confirmed our gray hen is in fact a Blue Cochin, but when I look up Blue Cochin Rooster, it looks nothing like ours. Once I figure out how to post pics on here, I'll put up a pic of our rooster. :))

Have a great day everyone!
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Hi and welcome to BYC from northern Michigan
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Feed your hens a layer ration starting now - you could have started that when you first got them, if they were at least 18 weeks old. Don't feed corn, it is very high in fat and will unbalance their diet; they will eat it preferentially at the cost of eating their balanced feed. Oyster shell and granite grit should be offered separate from the food.
 

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