A week or so ago my 11 month old hens reached peak production and I was getting 5-7 eggs a day from my seven hens. Then one day I got 3... The next day 2 and one of my hens was broody. I saw at least one of those "Soft shelled" eggs in the coop. I had seen one or two before, usually from a hen who laid it during the night off the roost. The one I saw looked like it was dropped from the roost. There may have been one in the pen as well, I was not sure. Then for two days I get only one egg from my faithful little Frazzle ( red frizzle bantam) now two hens are broody and for two days I have had no eggs. I searched the pen and coops for hidden nests. One broody hen is trying to hatch a large marble and a golf ball and the other is sitting on stone eggs. She actually went broody in a nest with one stone egg, but after one of her exercise breaks returned to a nest with two stone eggs.
I have read about "Egg drop syndrome" but supposedly it is not in the north America. I did bring home four silkies two weeks ago,( they are 12-16 weeks old) they could have been exposed to water fowl (a suspected carrier of EDS virus). I have not mixed the flocks, but I do carry the silkies around so I might have transmitted something on my clothes.
Anyone have this experience? Suggestions? From what I read, EDS lasts 4-10 weeks and is not fatal to the birds or injurious to humans. The flock looks and acts normally, even the broody girls get out into the yard for a little while several times a day and move and act normally.
The timing for the broodiness is almost good. Since I have an order of chicks coming. But that is 25 days away and I am not sure the hens would still be receptive. IF the flock is sick I would not want to expose the chicks, except that sometimes I read that pre-laying exposure can offer immunity. Suggestions?
My local group thinks this is just normal quirky chicken behavior. I am mostly concerned that they have all gone off laying at once. My little red bantam is a bit older, but the rest of my flock are eggs from the same flock, not the same parents, and all hatched under the same hen late March 2008.
Doris and the wonderful flock of eight plus 4 Silkies.
I have read about "Egg drop syndrome" but supposedly it is not in the north America. I did bring home four silkies two weeks ago,( they are 12-16 weeks old) they could have been exposed to water fowl (a suspected carrier of EDS virus). I have not mixed the flocks, but I do carry the silkies around so I might have transmitted something on my clothes.
Anyone have this experience? Suggestions? From what I read, EDS lasts 4-10 weeks and is not fatal to the birds or injurious to humans. The flock looks and acts normally, even the broody girls get out into the yard for a little while several times a day and move and act normally.
The timing for the broodiness is almost good. Since I have an order of chicks coming. But that is 25 days away and I am not sure the hens would still be receptive. IF the flock is sick I would not want to expose the chicks, except that sometimes I read that pre-laying exposure can offer immunity. Suggestions?
My local group thinks this is just normal quirky chicken behavior. I am mostly concerned that they have all gone off laying at once. My little red bantam is a bit older, but the rest of my flock are eggs from the same flock, not the same parents, and all hatched under the same hen late March 2008.
Doris and the wonderful flock of eight plus 4 Silkies.
