Not laying what to do?

[mustangsaguaro]

I have 2 females that are not laying as consistently as all my other birds. I normally allow my birds to free range but this year I am concentrating on breeding so need to have my birds separated into different pens. My setup isn't the greatest so I am going to have to rotate who gets to free range and who doesn't. These 2 females that are not laying consistently I am lucky if I am getting one maybe 2 eggs a week from where I have them. They have not free ranged since Oct. as I had some shows and need them to be nice for the shows. Today I decided to let them out w/ everyone else to see if the might consider laying for me today. I am at a loss of what to do. Only other thing I can think of is they don't like the male that is w/ them. But that shouldn't have any bearing on whether they are laying eggs or not. What else could it be. They don't have any lice or mites and there combs are very vibrant in that it indicates they should be laying.

I also have 4 female silkies that should be laying too and they are not. Now the silkies I have never allowed to free range. They seem to be on strike too.

Is there anything I can give to these birds to try and get them to lay or do I just have to wait it out and they will start when they want too? Now w/ the one pen of silkies there is a male and then 4 babies in w/ them. The babies are 3 mos and 4mos of age. Would that have any bearing on them laying or not. The other silkie pen has 2 females w/ a male and no babies. The pen w/ no babies they are still young at only 8 mos. But they have laid a few eggs for me in the past. I got one egg out of this pen the other day. The other pen w/ the babies those hens are going on almost 2 yrs old.

Suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[donrae]

What breeds are you talking about besides the silkies? Some birds, especially non-hatchery, non-production birds, just don't lay well during the winter, even when they're young. You can try supplementing light, or just wait for the days to lengthen.

 

[mustangsaguaro]

What breeds are you talking about besides the silkies? Some birds, especially non-hatchery, non-production birds, just don't lay well during the winter, even when they're young. You can try supplementing light, or just wait for the days to lengthen.

All my birds are non hatchery birds.The 2 that are not laying well are Lavender Ameraucanas. All my other Lavender Ameraucana's including 2 black ones are giving me roughly 4-6 eggs a week/bird. Again not sure why these 2 seem to be on strike like the silkies are. It's frustrating especially w/ the silkies cause I want to incubate their eggs. I can incubate the Am's since I have a bunch of them laying.