Quail haven't laid in 7+ weeks?...

[Jschaaff]

Hi, and thanks in advance for taking the time to read this...

My quail, all adults, were each laying an egg a day all summer, but nobody has laid since the last week of August.

I know that sometimes they need a break and will stop for a few weeks, but is 7+ weeks normal?

I also know environment changes can make them stop but again, for 7 weeks?!?

The changes have been:

My adults (2 roos, and 7 girls) had been in a 8 x 12 pen.
For a month, I had to split the pen (completely divided) because I needed room until my younger birds grew to a size I could safely integrate them.
Each group was given a 6 x 4 section, and my adults continued to lay beautifully.

At the beginning of Sept when everyone was the same size, I sold off most of the younger birds, but kept three and added them to my 7 girls.
I opened the pen back up to 8 x 12 and put all 10 girls back in together.
I gave away one roo because he was crazy aggressive, kept one male, and added one new roo to my pen.

The final new family at the beginning of sept was 7 "old" girls, 3 new girls, one "old" roo, and one new roo.

And I have only got 3 eggs ALL together, since.


If this is just entirely normal behavior...then cool...but I feel like I seriously P!ssed them off...and I'm not sure what to do. I'm considering rehoming the last 3 girls and hoping maybe that will restore the egg laying, but honestly, everyone seems to get along so well, I can't imagine the that's the problem...

Any advice is appreciated!

Jessa

 

[Stellar]

The daylengths are changing. Are you adding any sort of lighting to the pen at all? 16 hours of daylength should help on the egg laying or they are molting. But they should lay some eggs during molt.

 

[Jschaaff]

Quote:
No Ma'am, they are not molting. When the days get shorter, and, for instance my chickens slow with laying, I've never added a light because I've always felt bad...like I'd be cracking the whip so to say "You WILL lay me an egg daily...get back in your laying box!"

....I just usually let it runs its course and figure its a good break for them, (I do add red heat lamps at night in the winter but thats different I suppose). But they still lay quite often, and no one ever just, ....stops.

Buuut...that said... almost 2 months with no quail laying seems a long time, so I will clip a light out there tomorrow and see if after a few days that helps. They've had quite a long break, so I wont feel guilty about forcing them with the light

If that doesn't work...oh , I don't know then!!

Thank you
Jessa

 

[Stellar]

Hopefully the light helps

Also make sure there isn't anything startling the birds OR make sure you don't have any egg eaters. Those are usually other indicators of lack of eggs at times. Just some possibilities.