Territorial laying?

[cdmaze]

I've been worried about my girls since the last snow storm. Only one egg, every few days in contrast to the 4 a day I was getting before. I assumed it was the snow, the soggy food, etc.

But there is a couple other things going on...

for one, our neighbors chickens: they are in our yard all the time- not in my girls' coop, but around it, until I get out there with the b-b gun. This has been going on for about a month, though, and the egg thing has only been the last couple of weeks.

The other thing is...I realized my White silkie started laying for the first time about 2 weeks ago. She has tiny little white eggs- and those are the only ones that have been in there. She is the very bottom of the pecking order- could there be some reason why the others would strike in this case? Like..."I'm not laying here is shes laying here!" Does that happen? As far as I can tell, though, they're not laying anywhere else.

I've very sad- I usually have an overflowing 18-pack all the time in my fridge, and now, I'm thinking...I may have to get eggs from someone else!!!

 

[CHICKENBOY 1]

to bad i can't tell you much but if you can maby get the neihbor to keep her chickens home maby the egg was the neibor's hen's.

 

[Akane]

Chickens don't care who lays where except when they all try to cram in the same nestbox at once. Then someone might lay on the floor but it will usually be the one lowest in the pecking order who isn't allowed in the nestbox. They can't consciously stop egg production. They will stop if they are stressed, if there is too little light, if they don't have everything they need to make eggs, or if they are molting and need to put the energy in to new feathers. You'll have to narrow it down to one of those if you want to find out why they stopped.