What could be the reason?

[catdaddy66]

I have read the sticky thread about why chickens do not lay/quit laying and think mine may be stressed, but not sure.

I had to do spring cleaning in my girls coop after using the DLM (deep litter method) since 6/10. My coop has poor access thru a small doorway so my son and nephew had to enter the 8'x8'x5' coop to rake the litter out 2 wks ago. At that time the girls had begun to increase their laying and we were getting 5-7 per day. Since cleaning the coop I am seeing 1 per day! The girls were all in the coop during the cleaning as my run has been non usable for several months. They were somewhat vocal, but not out of the realm of reasonable. Does stress in chickens last for weeks? What can be done to de-stress them, short of building them a working run? I do plan to build a predator proof run soon, though. Any thoughts on this conundrum?

PS: my DS just came in and had 12 eggs over 2 days!!

 

[ralleia]

Had you been using supplemental light that was suddenly turned off? I can't imagine that stress could last that long--we mucked out our chicken coop recently and are still getting buried alive in eggs.

Here's a link to a university website that has a pretty exhaustive list of potential causes to reduced egg production. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps029

But if you got 12 in two days, the drought may be over!