What is wrong with my hen?

[Erba]

The molting has been over for a while now, at least a month. One hen is only laying sporadically an egg a week since the molt. The other is back to laying normally, and only took two weeks off for molting. They are the same breed and get the same food and are the same age, so I am puzzled as to whats up her.

 

[azygous]

If the hen that is slacking off laying is behaving normally and not acting sick, my guess is she's still recovering from molt and hasn't recovered her normal weight. Until a hen reaches a minimum weight, her hormones will remain in abeyance and she won't lay.

And then there's the light factor. If anything, the other hen is likely to stop laying at the point where daylight reaches its minimum.

Compare the weights of these two hens. Assuming they're the same breed and age, they should be close to the same weight. If this hen is light, try feeding her some high protein foods as an extra treat. Boiled egg, tofu, cat food, liver, mackerel, etc.

I do this with a few of my hens that seem to have very hard molts and lose a lot of weight.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Are your hens the same breed? What breed?

As @azygous noted, the cause is likely day/night period. Your days are now over 7 hours shorter than at summer solstice. You'll lose another hour and a half of day length before the pattern changes. That will be in 45 days. Expect production to improve after that.

 

[Erba]

Breed is light Sussex and last year they laid all through winter. It was their (and my) very first molt, so absolutely no idea. I did notice that the slacker's black feathers are much blacker now than they were, which is awesome! Thanks for the tip with the protein, I haven't actually been giving them much lately and that could be the reason she's not ready yet. She is also the bigger hen of the two, so probably needs more anyway.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Most pullets will lay right through their first winter but I don't think I've had a hen entering their second and subsequent autumns lay straight through to spring without some sort of cessation in production.
A hen's feathers are most beautiful after recovering from molt.
Sussex are a very productive breed.

 

[Erba]

It wouldn't be all that bad, if I didn't have just two layers at the moment. I also have a pullet that is not laying yet. i gave them all (5 chickens in total with a cockerel and a rooster) two foil packs of veal cat food today. Top two hens got the most of it, so here is to hoping it will work.

 

[aart]

Top two hens got the most of it, so here is to hoping it will work.

Good for them to have some animal protein while molting,
but it's not gonna magically switch the egg laying machine to 'on'.
I have 12 hens and 2 pullets...only 2 hens laying, I get 1 egg every couple days.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I'm down to 13 mature hens and I'm getting about 1 egg a day. What makes matters worse is the I seem to have an egg eater. That's something I have to fix.
2 hens that could be laying (recovered from molt) have adopted all the chicks and are making the broody cluck noises. So I'm sure they have shut down for a month or two.

 

[Erba]

not gonna magically switch the egg laying machine to 'on'

not expecting it to, but she magically laid another molt (lumpy) egg today.
But seriously I think she might have laid it with or without the cat food. I've just got to be patient. She will hopefully, at some time return to normal egg production and stop the lumpy egg thingy too

 

[ChickenCanoe]

What do you mean by a lumpy egg?