Robin's Egg size eggs from year old Buff Orpingtons...

[ganesa_9]

Our small (8) flock of year old Buff Orps started not laying about a month ago... all at one time. Now, once in a great while, we'll get an egg. No sign of molting or any other reason for the cessation of egg laying. They get all the layer feed they need plus free range over an acre of land with plenty of shelter from predators (mostly hawks).

Now, just today, I went out in my fruitless search for eggy goodness and found what can only be described as a Buff Orpington brown egg... the size of a Robin's Egg! I kid you not!!! We've had plenty of Buff Orps over the years and this is the first time we've EVER had this stuff happen. What could it be? I'm beginning to think they are defective chickens. We got 'em from McMurray, the hatchery we always get chicks from, but these are the saddest looking birds I've ever seen.

Any suggestions or ideas short of the stew pot (we are already considering that and have already purchased their replacements) would be welcome.

 

[cmclean]

Do they have nesting boxes or do they range everywhere? Is it possible they are laying eggs in hidden locations?

 

[ganesa_9]

They have nesting boxes aplenty in a large and spacious coop. When this first started they all spent hours in the nest boxes, like they had all gone broody, but now only two of them are ever in the boxes (and I'm certain that these two are broody) and the rest spend all day roaming about in their fenced in run. They had started to fly over the fence, so we clipped their wings... now only two of them can still successfully hop over the fence and do so every day. Those two could be laying in other 'homemade' nests, but the other six I have no idea why they stopped, except of course for the broody two. And in the entire year none of them have ever molted. I suppose really that this would be the first Fall when they would molt, but I'm still perplexed by the near total lack of eggs.

I'm going to try keeping them in the coop over the weekend and checking for eggs every couple hours to see if they are still laying... if they are then I can start looking for the hidden nests. But other than the cover of large trees, their run is pretty open... not much place to hide a 'secret' nest.