Please help. Nice chickens not laying.

[sudolph]

Can DE make them stop laying? I fed it twice in the last 2 months. Do I need to change brands of layer crumbles? Do they need medicine? I wormed them last summer and they continued to lay until the last couple of months. I have 12 hens, some good laying breed, some not, but 0 eggs. I'm so sad. Free range a few hours per day-2 roosters.

Sudolph

 

[Tuffoldhen]

No, De will not make them stop laying...if anything it helps get the buggies out of their system so they lay better...It's that time of year when hens slow down alot in production due to a molt (loss of feathers)...not enough daylight hours for them or they are getting ready for cold winter months.....

Most of us are going thru the no eggs for awhile...I'm down to 3 eggs every other day for 14 laying hens, pullets haven't even started yet.........no need to change anything....my opinion....

 

[speckledhen]

How old are they? They could be molting or beginning a molt. Daylight is getting shorter and most chickens slow down some when that happens. DE would have nothing to do with it and any good quality layer feed is fine. I bet it's either molting or just the shorter days slowing them down.

 

[sudolph]

Most of them are between 6 and 8 months old, but I really don't know how old 5 are. I bought them as adults. They were supposed to be less than a year old.

They have not molted at all.

sudolph

 

[suburbanhomesteader]

I have 7 who range between 5 months and 6 months old, and only 2 are laying; they are each laying one every other day, but the cook thing is that they are on opposite cycles, so I get a fresh egg almost every day!

 

[Blisschick]

Mine aren't hardly laying, either. Today I only got 3 eggs from a total of 35 laying hens. It's just that time of the year when they are molting and their bodies are taking a rest from producing eggs. Most of their energy is going towards making new feathers and putting back on body fat. Not all chickens molt at the same rate. I have some that have completely molted, others that are just starting, and a couple that haven't even started yet. Once they've molted, they'll pick up laying again some, but you probably won't see them laying regularly again until around March.