What are my chickens lacking ??

[amazonabby]

I have 2 RIsland Reds that are over 3 years old and together they give me around 10 eggs a week.

I have 2 little white chickens with feathers on their feet that used to lay 10 SMALL eggs a week combined but neither of them have produced since September. They molted and I am hoping they will start laying again.
How long after molting has finished should I expect eggs to start?

I purchased 2 four month old Araucana? chickens at the end of August and they still have not started laying. I got one egg that was brown and about the size of a doves egg around the end of September but nothing since. They are at the bottom of the pecking order.
When should they start laying? They are 8 months old now and NO EGGS!

My girls have a large shed that was converted into a coupe there is pleanty of room for them. I have a gravity feeder and and an automatic waterer so they alwasy have food and water. I have one big laying area for them all. Do I need to split it up so they have privacy? They are contained so there is no way I am missing the eggs. I let them out into their chicken tractor once a month but I don't have real grass only pricker weeks. Plus the Araucana chickens get picked on so much I wouldn't want to make them be in such close prox. to the mean irls all day.

My parents have always had chickens but theirs normally all grew up together and I have 3 sets of sisters from different years. Could the pecking order be messing up their production?

I have enough eggs to support myself but I want to know if I am doing something wrong. I gave it 4 months incase it was just because they they were all stressed out with the addition of the 2 Araucanas. I don't get it. It gets cold in Florida but not crazy cold and we have only had one freeze warning so far.

Please help!

They have a safe secure coupe. Pleanty of food and water. I give them the calcium with their food. I change out the hay in their nest once a month or when it gets dirty. I give them table scraps and grass and bird seeds as treats. I don't know what else to do. They don't all huddle together at night they only huddle with their sister.

 

[chickenma]

Mine amarecauna's were very late layers too. They are 10+ month's old and they start laying eggs last week. First one and then yesterday the second one. And not every day.
Good luck. I know how you feel. when they are ready they will lay an egg.
Goodluck

 

[digitS']

Welcome to BYC!!

These are some of the reasons why I stopped getting different chickens of different sizes and ages. However, your RIR's are proving wrong my old idea of getting rid of them after their 2nd molt. That's just fine.

This is the first time in a good number of years that I have 2 breeds at the same time. That wasn't intentional, I was getting Australorps again, the guy wanted to "throw in" a couple extra little black ones - I thought they were sex-link roosters. Turned out to be Barred Rock pullets

.

So, I have 2 BR who have decided that they are best of friends and 2 Aussies who are the best of friends. Both BR's pick on one of the Aussies, #3 out of the 4. Nobody picks on #4 who must consider herself so "precious" that she was weeks later starting to lay and has decided that it is okay to just dump her egg on the floor

.

My best hen is probably BR #1. However, she certainly tends to be short-tempered.

Molting? I really think that the best you can hope for is 1 month. Molting varies bird to bird - some go thru a real change and with others, it is difficult to know when it starts or stops.

The stress of the arrival of the Araucanas probably shut down your little white ones early and they are still coming back from their molt.

Easter Egg chickens must be highly variable. I've only had 2 and that was long ago.

Decreasing hours of sunlight may not amount to much in Florida (your "frost warning" makes me smile

) but it may be influencing egg laying in a negative way. You probably lost an hour or 2 of daylight since September.

Steve

 

[amazonabby]

I got 2 green eggs yesterday!

I guess they were just to young!

Thank you!

Now if my little white ones would finish molting and start laying that would be great and none of my friends would have to buy eggs anymore.