What's the dang deal....no eggs for weeks

It's so frustrating isn't it. I would probably blame the shorter days. They need a certain amount of daylight to lay. You could try giving them supplemental light, but that might be tough in an Eglu, you wouldn't want to turn it into a little toaster oven.

If it makes you feel any better, I've gotten 3 eggs in the last ten days from my seven hens, and one of them was cracked. I'm probably going to have to buy eggs at the end of the week.

 

I find that sometimes a 9 or 10 month old pullet will experience a sort of mini-molt. It has happened to my friend with her EE pullet who didn't start back till spring. It just happened with my Blue Orp pullet, Velvet, who quit for six weeks. I did see that she had lost some neck feathers just like my older molters and then I understood the break she was taking. She just started back last week-she was hatched Feb 1 this year. My RIR/Buff Orp pullet has stopped laying for the last two weeks and I see that she has lost her longest tail feathers, so same story with her.

 

My 18 girls have been giving me ONE or TWO eggs a day for 5 weeks now. The feathers ALL over the hen house and coop are proof they are in the midst of a hard molt. I'm hoping they get over it soon. I don't want to have to buy eggs again.

I agree with Speckled.

 

I saw no excessive feathers in the pen with Velvet, either, but there was a definite bare patch just under her jaw area, right where they always seem to lose feathers in a molt and it isn't pests, either. A mini-molt at her age won't necessarily show tons of feathers everywhere. I don't know for certain that's what's going on with yours, but is certainly could be.

 

I've been wondering about this myself. A silkie hen laid an egg every other day for about 2 weeks, and then just stopped laying at all.

The EE's and one BO are laying pretty regular, but the silkie hasn't started back up. They can't free range, and I see no sign of eggs being eaten.

Is this kind of thing normal for some 'beginner' layers? Or are silkies just not very dependable layers?

 

Hey, Nadine...I'm wondering the same thing for my 2 bantams. They hatched out March 26th...not an egg anywhere! It's a small coop and run, no place to hide. We have added light to their coop, a couple of weeks ago. Not sure what else I might be doing wrong? That's it, they're aliens in chick-suits!

Tanya