Our chickens stopped laying - Help!

[yinzerchick]

Here's the thread...www.backyardchickens.com/t/608787/feeding-chickens-black-pepper

 

[OldMcAndy]

We have about 60 chickens - they're not all molting at the same time. We have different ages from 6 month to 3 years old - all look healthy and happy!

 

[OldMcAndy]

Has anyone had any luck getting their chickens to lay in the past 2 weeks? We sure haven't, but we'll certainly try the pepper trick!

 

[35chick4kid1dog]

This sounds like our problem exactly! We have battled some mites recently, and so I thought perhaps it was that, but I am kind of skeptical. I was thinking of some worming or at least seeing if our vet will run a fecal test for us. But I like this idea of the pepper. If its enough to fight off the worst of a wormy invasion so their natural immune system can kick them, I'd much rather go that route than chemicals.

I'll be watching to see if anyone has success with this!

 

[35chick4kid1dog]

Okay, so I found an older, 20-some page forum discussion ree pepper experiment. Seems a lot of folks had great luck with it, though some didn't. So this morning I gave my chooks a big treat of leftover plain spaghetti noodles laced with a VERY generous dose of cayenne all over it and mixed in. They snarfed it up super fast.
At lunchtime, I also broke up a few leftover sandwich pockets (biscuit dough with sandwich fillings inside) and also some oatmeal with apples from breakfast and laced that super well with red pepper flakes & Aleppo pepper (out of the cayenne). We'll see what happens tomorrow! I need to head to GFS or Sams and get a few of those giant containers of ground pepper if I am to continue this. The other thread suggested roughly 1 Tbl per bird per day. And I have 30!!

Crossing my fingers!

 

[efanie]

I am having the same problem they just stopped laying

 

[35chick4kid1dog]

So the pepper doesn't seem to be doing anything at all. Isn't bad for them, though. After talking to Beekissed and others I think its just a winter slowdown in preparation for staying warm all winter.
I am getting 1-2 eggs per day - an australorp and a delaware. I guess we'll just wait a couple more weeks for them to come out of it naturally. We are going to put a small light in the coop. We are relying on these girls to help us eat well this winter - and we do a LOT of eggs. They'll make a nice stew when they've slowed down too much to be earning their keep! YUM! In fact 10 go to the processors in a couple of weeks.

Hope everyone else's flock comes out of it soon, too!