These beauties aren't laying!!!

[mlploeger]

See these two beautiful black Australorp girlies of ours?! They are both 6 months old and still NO eggs What's the deal? Does this breed tend to lay on the later side or do we have freeloaders on our hands?

 

[Ming Ming]

try giving them some corn and high calorie snacks.

 

[sourland]

I don't think that 24 weeks is out of line for this breed. The hen in the 'solo' picture and to the left in the second picture is going to be laying very soon.

Stick with a balanced layer ration for their feed.

 

[Ming Ming]

make sure you nesting boxes are super cozy

 

[mlploeger]

make sure you nesting boxes are super cozy

Thank you! Okay so we have one big nesting box that our leghorn and red star barnyard mix have been laying in pretty steadily for about a month now. They are the two on the top of the pecking order. Is it possible that the black ones don't want to go into their area? Are they territorial? Anyways I added a new cozy little box just for those two in the coop a couple of days ago... fingers crossed!

 

[Ming Ming]

add more boxes

 

[mlploeger]

I don't think that 24 weeks is out of line for this breed. The hen in the 'solo' picture and to the left in the second picture is going to be laying very soon.

Stick with a balanced layer ration for their feed.

Thank you this is encouraging! I will look into the feed

 

[mlploeger]

try giving them some corn and high calorie snacks.

Oh yes.. we had corn on sale at the store and we loaded up. So we've been giving them lots of treats. Any ideas for other high calorie snacks?

 

[mlploeger]

add more boxes

I only have 4 hens. 2 boxes should be plenty right?

 

[sourland]

Sounds as if your birds are right on schedule. Leghorns and Sex links generally start laying as much as 4 weeks earlier. It's a good idea to have multiple nest boxes, but even then hens may compete for the one 'favorite' nest.