I have NHR, BO's and welsummers. THey were born in May and started laying about mid September...a lot. Laying a lot of eggs. I went away for a week leaving them with a sitter. THey looked great when I got home...but were not laying. I have 16 hens and am now only getting about two to three eggs a day. What is the deal? They don't seem to be molting. I'm sure you guys can tell me what's going on. I am just new at it and a little confused. THanks for your help, Sheila
A lot of it has to do with the amount of daylight this time of year. Ours all quit laying also and then went into molt. If yours are looking and acting healthy then I would expect that is the problem. Also might depend on how well they were taken care of while you were gone. If they were allowed to go without water for any length of time then this is a stress issue for them. Anytime there is stress they will usually quit laying.
I was getting near 2 dozen eggs a day. Then I was getting 6. Then I was getting 1. 2months later I'm finally back to 6 and steadily increasing. They decided to molt except for my 2 bantam EE that had just started laying. It happens this time of year and sometimes with young birds a molt is not obvious because it doesn't result in a large loss of feathers. As they grow they go through several partial molts their first year. The ones that fully stopped laying and molted this year I hardly noticed last year. They had a few slight drops in eggs and maybe there were a few more feathers about the coop than usual but that's it. If they aren't showing any signs of health problems then so long as they have plenty of food, water, and light there's not much you can do but wait.
Well my RIR just started laying and is almost laying one a day, HOWEVER our gold laced wyandotte that was religiously laying every other day has stopped and hasn't laid for over a week. I check her bottom ( I don't really knw what i'm lookk for but she didn't fuss when I was inspecting so i don't think sh'e sin pain. sh'es healthy happy running around as normal.... no molting and she's about 31 weeks any ideas?
