No eggs from any hens? What could be wrong?

[chick123600]

I have about 30 hens, and the only eggs I find are my guinea eggs. Where do all my hens eggs go? Is it possible that they aren't laying at all? We have been buying about 4 hens every month or so, and they all lay about the first two or three days, then I can't find any after that.

What could be wrong? I haven't seen any snakes. And nothing I know of has been back there to eat them. Maybe they are eating them..?

HELP!!???!!

 

[HEChicken]

First I'll address the eggs you find for the first 2-3 days after acquiring new hens. Any stress to a chicken and she stops laying. Moving from one place to another is considered stress and will definitely stop them laying for a few weeks. However any eggs that are "in the works" at the time you acquire the hens, will still be laid. Hence, the first few days you have them, they lay the eggs they were already developing, but stop forming new eggs. Following that they will go several weeks before they start to lay again.

You haven't said how many you have have total, what ages they are, and what their housing situation is. If they free-range, they could well be laying in hidden nests. Or you could have a predator getting to the eggs before you do.

 

[chick123600]

They are all between 10months, and one year. So they aren't very old. They are not cooped up, but I search the whole yard, and find no nests. Before I started getting the new hens, they did hide their eggs and I'd find random eggs. I can't count them until the morning, but I know for sure there is about 30 hens, to 5 roosters. The roosters don't bother them much, all but one are old roosters, so they don't mess with the hens much. We are currently building a new barn back there, but this started way before that. They have a barn for shelter now. They are all in with my 8 goats. The goats don't bother them either. They are also in with 7 guineas, and two ducks. They are on almost an acre.
I have Ameracaunas, Dominiques a few Barred rocks, and some mixed breeds. So they should be laying quite a bit.

Now that I think of it, we did move them to a different yard. If that stressed the ones I had before I bought new ones, how long would it take them to calm down?

 

[Den in Penn]

If you have a large enough coop/run pen them up for a day. If they lay while confined you know they have hidden nests. They find the most out of the way places to lay. If you have a morning to watch one or two follow them and see where they go. Or something is helping you from being burdened with eggs.

 

[HEChicken]

Now that I think of it, we did move them to a different yard. If that stressed the ones I had before I bought new ones, how long would it take them to calm down?

My rather vague answer is "several weeks" only because there is a wide variation in what a hen decides is stressful and the degree to which she is affected.

If you have a large enough coop/run pen them up for a day. If they lay while confined you know they have hidden nests. They find the most out of the way places to lay. If you have a morning to watch one or two follow them and see where they go. Or something is helping you from being burdened with eggs.

I agree with this advice! It is amazing the places they will find to lay. I was certain there was no possible way mine had a hidden nest - until I found 8 eggs in a place I would never have dreamed they could even get to.

 

[chick123600]

Well, we have a whole cleared yard, and they only possible way I know of for them to hide them is if they are either nesting on the hen house, or jumping the fence. And I just did a walk in my neighbors yard looking for two missing roosters that had jumped the fence. I didn't find any eggs. We don't really have any where for them to hide in my yard, and where they do have to hide I check every day. My duck, and guineas all lay in the hen house and the hens used to until about 3 weeks ago, when I stopped having any eggs at all.

We can't pen them up right now as we are building on to our hen house (we started this about a week ago) and there is a wall that we took out.