Hello!
We got ten 1-2 year old chickens on April 17th. Here is there weekly production record:
Week 1: 31 eggs
Week 2: 27 eggs
Week 3: 15 eggs
Week 4: 10 eggs
Week 5: 11 eggs
and so far for week 6 we have gotten 5 eggs in 4 days.
We have 5 buff orpingtons, 1 light brahma, 2 americaunas, 1 production red and 1 *supposed to be* welsummer (but we have never seen a dark brown egg yet!).
We changed over to a chicken nipple watering bucket the 14th of this month.
We added a rooster on May 22. They didn't like him very much at first and 5 of the hens took after him, the buffs just went into the hen house and didn't participate LOL.
We have been feeding them free-feed laying mash and/or crumble, and throw out some scratch once a day. We have let them out to pick greenies whenever the weather has been good enough and we were home (about once a week, but will be starting to range them more this coming week - the weather is supposed to turn nice).
We have a hen house with 3 nest boxes, each with a golf ball, and plenty of roosting space. They have a small covered run. We have also given then goodies on occassion, alfalfa, some old oatmeal, cucumber peels, etc, but they only get those rarely, it is not a regular thing.
They appear to be healthy, they are friendly, some of them even come up to you and wait for you to pet them. They talk and scratch and act like normal chickens.
I have noticed a few feather, but none of them look like they are molting, no bare patches or obvious molting signs. The weather has been up and down, we live in the mountains in Idaho and it has been warm, cold, rainy, hot, etc, lots of regular weather changes. The nights are still getting pretty cool, in the mid to upper thirties and fourties. Day temps have ranged from the upper 40's to low seventies for the most part with a couple days, since we had the chickens, hitting 80.
I was told they would go off their eggs for a couple weeks after we got them. So my question is, do you think their low production is normal after the stress of changing homes and/or possibly throwing them into a small molt, still after almost 6 weeks? Is there anything else that could be causing them to have such low production?
Thank you very much for your time!
DebiR. and the girls (hens!)
We got ten 1-2 year old chickens on April 17th. Here is there weekly production record:
Week 1: 31 eggs
Week 2: 27 eggs
Week 3: 15 eggs
Week 4: 10 eggs
Week 5: 11 eggs
and so far for week 6 we have gotten 5 eggs in 4 days.
We have 5 buff orpingtons, 1 light brahma, 2 americaunas, 1 production red and 1 *supposed to be* welsummer (but we have never seen a dark brown egg yet!).
We changed over to a chicken nipple watering bucket the 14th of this month.
We added a rooster on May 22. They didn't like him very much at first and 5 of the hens took after him, the buffs just went into the hen house and didn't participate LOL.
We have been feeding them free-feed laying mash and/or crumble, and throw out some scratch once a day. We have let them out to pick greenies whenever the weather has been good enough and we were home (about once a week, but will be starting to range them more this coming week - the weather is supposed to turn nice).
We have a hen house with 3 nest boxes, each with a golf ball, and plenty of roosting space. They have a small covered run. We have also given then goodies on occassion, alfalfa, some old oatmeal, cucumber peels, etc, but they only get those rarely, it is not a regular thing.
They appear to be healthy, they are friendly, some of them even come up to you and wait for you to pet them. They talk and scratch and act like normal chickens.
I have noticed a few feather, but none of them look like they are molting, no bare patches or obvious molting signs. The weather has been up and down, we live in the mountains in Idaho and it has been warm, cold, rainy, hot, etc, lots of regular weather changes. The nights are still getting pretty cool, in the mid to upper thirties and fourties. Day temps have ranged from the upper 40's to low seventies for the most part with a couple days, since we had the chickens, hitting 80.
I was told they would go off their eggs for a couple weeks after we got them. So my question is, do you think their low production is normal after the stress of changing homes and/or possibly throwing them into a small molt, still after almost 6 weeks? Is there anything else that could be causing them to have such low production?
Thank you very much for your time!
DebiR. and the girls (hens!)
