No eggs.

[gene housley]

I have 2 older hens and 10 that were hatched in the spring, was getting eggs until three wks, ago. The weather here was nice until this past week. Feeding scratch and have added red seal to it this past week. No sign of broken eggs or wet places in the nest, not free ranged. How long does molt usually take and egg production begin again? Would the 2 older hens and the young ones molt at the same time. No light but i am thinking of adding one. Several times the nest seem to be disturbed, hay kicked out etc. Thanks for any advice.

 

[featheredplanets]

They'll start laying again very soon, daylight is slowly lengthening so a lot of hens/pullets are coming back into lay or just beginning to lay. Do you just feed them scratch?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

More information needed.

Your location?

What breeds? Some breeds are poor layers and some lay nearly daily no matter what.
How old are the older hens?

What is red seal and before you started it, were they only being fed scratch?

Molt can knock them out of laying for the entire winter depending on breeds, location, feed and management.
Day length today was 39 minutes longer than at winter solstice.

 

[ChuSayBok]

We cleaned out deep freeze and chu had a chu feast; I think they needed some saturated fat, b/c I got 9 eggs on Saturday; was getting 1-2 a day 3 weeks ago and it's cold as Tibet here right now. I was hanging on to some old bacon grease like people do in the land of grits (though it isn't a practice I personally condone… heared it helps the canine expel worms or something like that..) and the chu were all like, hey, bacon grease! You've been holding out on us, Mama. Hope I don't get any hate for this, but my chu are not vegans, unlike the poor chickens that lay the eggs they sell in the store. They get scratch, scraps, and free range (read frogs, mice, etc when it's warmer) so they may feel a little deprived right now.

 

[Boonie Stomper]

Careful with the bacon grease as to quantity salt and other curing agents your birds eat. Mine are getting my old meat scraps from freezer burn and really love the fat. But only a few bites per day if is processed or cured meat. Bologna and hot dogs for example.

 

[gene housley]

More information needed.

Your location?

What breeds? Some breeds are poor layers and some lay nearly daily no matter what.
How old are the older hens?

What is red seal and before you started it, were they only being fed scratch?

Molt can knock them out of laying for the entire winter depending on breeds, location, feed and management.
Day length today was 39 minutes longer than at winter solstice.

White leghorns, red seal is a protein additive and yes only scratch before then and they were laying. I don't know how old the older hens are they were a gift. The younger ones were spring hatch. I live in southeastern Okla. and had warm weather until this past week.

 

[Welshies]

White leghorns, red seal is a protein additive and yes only scratch before then and they were laying. I don't know how old the older hens are they were a gift. The younger ones were spring hatch. I live in southeastern Okla. and had warm weather until this past week.

They need layer feed, or even better, 18% maintenance feed with a free choice side of oyster shell OR 20% all flock feed with a free choice side of oyster shell.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

White leghorns, red seal is a protein additive and yes only scratch before then and they were laying. I don't know how old the older hens are they were a gift. The younger ones were spring hatch. I live in southeastern Okla. and had warm weather until this past week.

Well there you go. You discovered the problem. It is hard to keep leghorns from laying eggs but since they are being nutritionally deprived by feeding only scratch, it was inevitable that they would play out early.
They need 90% of their diet to be chicken feed of some kind.
Right now they have a variety of mineral and vitamin deficiencies and before you started the red seal, they were deficient in essential amino acids.

A neighbor ran into me at the feed store and wanted to buy hens from me. When I asked why, he said his were broken because they quit laying.
I asked what he fed them.
He said, "scratch".
I said, "yeah but what else?"
He said, "just scratch".
I said, "you're starving them".
I told him to buy a bag of chicken feed and stop scratch altogether.
They resumed laying in about a month or more and they've been fine ever since.

Scratch is a good source of energy but very poor for providing nutrition.

 

[theoldchick]

Definitely get them on a good quality layer diet. Increasing light hours will also help---only if the birds are getting adequate nutrition. I think we were all having good weather until this weekend. This New Year has been a cold one! Good luck!

 

[gene housley]

Thank You.