What's wrong?

[PolarBear]

I started out with 10 yellow buff orpington hens and 1 yellow buff orpington. I was getting 6-7 eggs a day feeding Layena later pellets. The eggs were good, but they didn't have that dark yolk that I have gotten with hens in the past. Last Friday I added 10 rhode island red hens and 5 silver laced wynedottes. For the first couple of days I got 10-12 eggs per day, but now I'm getting 5-7 per day again. I had switched to a co-op brand feed that is 16% protein. The yolks are still pale yellow. What can I do to get that dark yolk and more eggs?

 

[chicmom]

Did you put all your chickens together? The newbies with the established flock? Sometimes chickens get upset when you make a big change like that so their laying cycle is disturbed for a week or two.

Maybe they just need to get used to eachother and all will be well again, and production will rise. Chickens are creatures of habit and very sensitive.....

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

Fresh veggies, like dark greens, and shredded carrots, also some people add marigold for the color, but my birds won't eat them.

 

[writermom]

I get eggs with beautiful orange yolks after I feed my hen spinach.

 

[WarPigKiller]

It could possibly be stress...

Did you quarantine your new birds before you put them with your existing flock?

 

[PolarBear]

No I didn't quartantine them. I know that it is best to quarantine them, but I don't have a separate run to quarantine them in. That probably is the problem, I just don't know why I got more eggs the first few days and then it dropped off. Maybe it will pick up in a couple of weeks.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

The new hens probably had some eggs "in the pipeline" that they laid when they first got there. Then all the change made them quit laying.

Free ranging on grass and other vegetation makes my chickens' egg yolks go from yellow to orange, from all the extra beta carotene.