Can I get your thoughts on my situation? My 5 chickens are now 20 weeks and we have not had a single egg. I increased the protein in the feed about a week ago. The 5 chickens do cohabitate with 4 older hens and 1rooster. I was getting about 2-3 eggs per day with the older hens (1.5-2yr) till August 1st when I took 2 of the younger chickens and two older chickens to the fair for a week. Ever since then all my chickens have been in strike. Is this related? Thanks
The ones you took to the fair were probably stressed into not laying. It's also possible that your older birds were molting and not producing due to that, and the shorter days now also mean that they could have stopped laying due to lack of daylight hours. Your younger ones at 20 weeks may just not be mature enough to lay yet - a lot of breeds take until six months to lay, and some can take even longer. Or if you free range it's possible they are laying, but are laying somewhere that you can't find.
I have 12 hens ranging from 20-25 weeks and still no eggs. Coop life for them all with the weekend free range. 12 sq ft per bird and plenty of healthy feed. They have layers pellets, fish meal, corn and table scraps every day. From what I've read is like mentioned above, could be several more weeks before we see an egg and with winter coming and less daylight could play a factor as well. I use a light only in the morning to get them 15 hours of light.
I've been sweating the same issue recently but with all 18 hens now between 25-26 weeks, the eggs are starting to come fast and furious, up from 3/day just three days ago, to 6 today. I can safely say though that these eggs are from my sex-links birds, numbering six, which are bred to produce sooner. It seems the buff orpingtons and Americaunas are going to be later than the others, as several wiser souls here have indicated would be the case. I feed a low protein 15% currently but will transition to a higher protein when all are laying. A feed store owner I spoke with-who sells eggs commercially with 75 hens-claims they lay much better in the winter months on gamefowl feed, with 22% protein; I'm going to mix in some of that as my grower feed runs out and try to use it throughout the winter months; it's $2 more a bag so we'll see if it's worth it or not. I too am running a light but no where near 15 hrs/day. I free-range them frequently and they have acres of space in the run-and are rarely in the coop except to sleep.
