UGH! No eggs all year!

[rosecreek]

Very early this Spring, my mom and I went halves on pullets. I raised them inside until they were big enough to go outside. We split them up, my mom's went to her house, and mine went out with my older girls. Out of her 6 hens, she gets 4 eggs a day. Out of mine, even with my older ones (two years old), I haven't gotten ANY since early Summer! Since the new girls came, no one has laid. They have a lighted coop, with plenty of room. (It used to be the kid's playhouse- the chickens even have a loft they play in and a bay window they love to look out of!) They have nesting boxes that the older ones USED to use. They have a huge, fenced play yard and get fed the best feed, plus kitchen scraps and goodies. (They are truly spoiled chickens!) They have a heated waterer, and their water gets replenished every day. I am at my wits end. My mom is getting eggs, so obviously, it's something we're doing. I've researched, but everything we're doing already is everything we're already doing. Granted, I have more chickens, but I also have way more space. They are otherwise healthy. We have no top hen, no bottom hen. They all get along great. No mites, no antibiotic or other medicine use ever needed. They are not laying and then eating them. I am out there enough to know for certain there. And there is no place in their pen or coop that they could be laying that I would not find them.

Like I said, I am at my wits end! I have some pullets that are nine months old, and have NEVER laid an egg!! I have had chickens all of my adult life, and I have NEVER had this problem.

Any thoughts?

Breeds are: Black Australorp, Golden Comet, Buff Orphington, Turken, RIR.

 

[aoxa]

With the breeds you listed, you should definitely be getting eggs. I have no clue! I hope someone else can chime in. Until then, here's a bump.

 

[Den in Penn]

Have you ruled out an egg eater, two legged and/or four legged?

 

[rosecreek]

Sorry for the long delay in getting back, we do not have internet at home (by choice).

I've thought of an egg eater, but the only way a four-legged critter could get into the coop would be to climb an eight-foot fence, and only during the day, when I am home and can hear everything going on out there. If one of the chickens were eating the eggs, they would have to be Houdini. We have one of those nesting boxes that the eggs roll under a board and into a basket. That is, if they were laying!

I'm about half tempted to start all over again! I'm so frustrated.

 

[dolly85]

When I had that problem it was two older hens eating the eggs. I had known it for a while, but put off butchering them as they were some of my favorites. Once we butchered them eggs were once again present in the hen house. Are you sure there is no way for them to tuck their beaks under and break the eggs before they roll down? Or perhaps they aren't laying in the nest boxes at all.

 

[pigeonguy]

Makes me wonder what the best feed is. Not saying it's not good just can't answer anything about nutrition based on best feed.

 

[rosecreek]

Well, we will be butchering all the older ones this week, so hopefully that IS the problem and will fix it. I hate to see my old girls go. They were all hatched in my kitchen, and some are going on six-years-old. I know I should have done it so much sooner, but I let my heart get in the way!