Playing Rooster?

[luckitri]

Learned about that here a couple of years ago when I had RIR's and Austrolorps. None of them ever had that problem.

Now I have 2 Easter Eggers, 1 bantam and 1 standard. I went to both feed stores for weeks and all the babies were sick so that is what I got. They were the only well ones. The bantam has been laying for a month and the standard size Easter Egger has not laid once yet. The store called them ameracaunas or something like that. The banty does not even have whiskers and her eggs are beige.

2 hens laying normal size eggs would have been perfect but this is a sick joke for me. Of course the employees at the stores are useless and seem to know nothing.

So is this breed known for a hen to play rooster when there is none around?

Or are the standard size Easter Eggers late to lay?

I could use some help figuring out what is wrong and how to fix it.

TIA!

P.S. The bantam first skipped a day when we had a bad storm. Since then she only lays maybe 5 or 4 days a week.

 

[Chirpy]

How old is the standard?

Although it's possible that they are Ameraucanas it's not likely since they came from a feed store. They are most certainly EE's - even some of the hatcheries sell EE's but call them Ameraucanas.

 

[luckitri]

Hi Chirpy!

They are 8 months now. The standard has become really beautiful and she does have a muff, I believe it is called, and her long red feathers have the striking black design on them so it is clear that she does have some of the blood in her. Her legs are green.

That laying part of hers has been working overtime for weeks. It is constantly puckering and releasing. Sometimes she acts like it is hot because she will raise her tail and put her butt in the breeze for a long time. I have wondered at times if she is eggbound but don't really know how to tell and she is not acting sick or in pain. She has a game of scratching the food container upside down and then screaming for me to come and turn it over which I am not going to do. Of course I always come running because I think she finally laid an egg. NOT!

However her comb is not like any other chicken I have had before (not that many). But looking at the photos it seems that the females' comb on this breed is smaller than on other breeds. It is condensed, compact and kind of scrunched into itself in folds. The bantam has a more normal comb like I saw in my other chickens. The bantam almost looks like a little dove. She is a graceful little lady whereas the standard is more flamboyant.

 

[Chirpy]

If you could post a picture that would certainly help us with this.

At 8 months she should certainly be laying by now. Has she ever tried to crow?

Are they in an enclosed coop/run? Is it possible that she's laying somewhere in secret and you haven't found her eggs? I just happened to see an egg sticking out of the pine shavings on my coop floor once and went over to dig it out. I found one under it! I started watching every day and one of my hens was laying over in the corner and then covering her egg!! Silly girl. If I hadn't have seen the top of that egg sticking out I wonder how many she'd have laid there before I ever found them. I put a large flat board down over the spot and that stopped her laying there, she went back to laying in the nest boxes.

If they free range.. her eggs could be anywhere ... and... everywhere.

 

[luckitri]

Aw - I don't have equipment to post photos.

They are in a coop and I can see everywhere easily as it is a small coop that I drag to different spots every week so the landlord does not scream about his lawn.

She certainly does crow just like my others did when they were proud of having laid an egg and yes my others were free-range and we had to hunt every day. These want to free-range and I want them to but we have a pool and deck that I do not want to have to spend time cleaning after them plus they are wild. I have tamed them down a bit but not enough. These girls did not imprint on us immediately when we got them. Now they like to be held - once I catch them - but only in the evening - and it has not happened as much as I would like because I am disabled. Anyway even as newborns they did their frantic best to get away from us so although I clipped their wings - no. I clipped the wings on my others and one still managed to fly over the fence one day when she was feeling very good about herself. In her case she came back when we called her name. These won't.

That ad on top for the discreet coop that your neighbors won't know about? Their pen is about that size but for 2 not 3. They have a roof because I was worried about bird flu from wild visitors so they get the sun in the sides. Actually it is a huge shipping crate that someone freecycled to me (and had a huge truck to deliver to me too) and we made into a coop. So we cut out the sides and I have framed screen doors to open so I can get to any part of it easily.

Interestingly the wild visitors have ceased. When these girls were younger we had a lot of company. They had a roof on their former pen too so not sure why. Oh, I forgot. I need to learn more about nesting boxes. There is a roost in the coop (a pole) but no nesting box. We had built nesting boxes for our others but they never used them so we did not bother this time. Perhaps some breeds think they need a box?