No Eggs... Molting and Rooster attention

[worthy vessel]

Help. I have been trying to find a reason our chickens stopped laying at the beginning of September...

We were getting approximately 20 eggs daily from our 24 chicken flock and 3 roosters.

They free range in the day. It's a mix of Buff Orp, Black Aust, Dominique, Aracauna, White Rock, Partridge Rock, Speckled Sussex, and Silver Laced Wyan...

So, there is no sign of worms, mites, and I have checked for predators...

this was also before the light and temps began to drop.

Additionally, we have at different times kept them closed up in their house/run for several days thinking they were laying outside in the yard/woods.

There appears to be evidence of molt... feathers all over the yard and house... would they ALL molt at the same time?? These chickens were born in late February 2009 (this year) and had only been laying for 1-2 months!! I would add that there are 3 "older" birds we had prior to ordering the chicks in February....

Also, I started "watching" them carefully and the roosters are NOT giving them any attention... not sure how to say that... they stay with the flock as they feed and scratch, etc. but there is no... sexual attention... ugh!

Would this have any effect on whether or not they are laying eggs??

Thank you for reading...

Any thoughts out there??

 

[rainbowgardens]

I don't think your February birds should be molting... It must be the older ones, though, mine did go through a mini molt just on their necks last fall. Never figured out why. It might have been from stress because a hawk had been bothering them.

The only thing I could imagine would cause the young ones to completely stop laying so early in the fall would be disease/parasites, or stress.

Was it a sudden stop in production, or gradual? Mine tapered down, but I still got maybe two or three eggs a week from my 8 hens in the slowest time.

 

[golden comets]

Are they getting at least 14 hours of light a day?I have a samll light on a timer that comes on at 4am and mine are still laying.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
My girls molted in a sort of sequence; some started molting just as others were finishing up their molt. They are the same age, 19 months, and the molting cycle started about two months ago.
My roo had no interest in mating during the time he and the hens were molting. During that time he only mated the girl that continued to lay through her molt, after he finished his own molt. In fact, the way I've been able to tell which girls are laying again is by which hens the roo has started to mate again.