When Should They Start Laying Again?

[animalsroc4evr]

Hey All,

We recently moved from Florida to Tennessee. Now I knew my girls (4 chickens and 3 ducks) would probably stop laying due to the stress of moving. Well tomorrow marks 3 weeks of living in Tennessee and they all have seemed to adjust just fine, but we have only been getting at most 1 egg a day (and lately they haven't had ANY eggs), and that is from one of my ducks.

My question is when should I expect them to start laying regularly again? Or will they never lay great after having such a big move? They are all 1 year olds (had birthdays the end of February).


HMM Should I get chicks while the "chick Season" is going on?? or do you think they will start laying again soon (like before the chicks would start laying)???

....

Thanks
Gretchen

 

[Randy]

There's no wrong reason for getting more chicks.

I would think that your other hens should start laying again pretty soon though.

 

[azygous]

Have you considered that they're adjusting to the difference in length of daylight at your new latitude? It may seem negligible to you, but laying hens are very sensitive to the length of the day, and usually adjust their laying according to how many hours they're exposed to light. You might be able to goose their "adjustment" with a couple extra hours of artificial light.

But, my guess is they're going to be laying again very soon, regardless. Try to be patient.

As for getting some chicks, you'd have eggs in another five or six months from your new pullets. It's also been my experience that new pullets starting to lay stimulates older hens into starting laying again. So there you have two great justifications for getting some new chicks!

 

[animalsroc4evr]

Well thank you Randy and Azygous! I do realize that it start's getting pretty dark here around 6-6:30 when it used to be about 7 before the move. I'm not too worried about it, I just wanted to see if anyone thought that the stress was too much and caused them to stop laying for good. Not that they are in any danger if they would never lay again, they are pets to me and egg producers to my parents. lol

A bunch of enablers around here huh?

I would have to have a good reason to get more chicks though, I live with my parents still (I'm in college) and they won't allow any more chickens until our other girls are too old to lay regularly. BUT I'll try to pull the whole "it will encourage the girls to lay better!" thing and see what happens

I think I've got them convinced to get a few guinea and 2 geese. We moved to 6.7 acres and I think it's time to expand the animals a little bit, and birds are one of the easier animals to care for. We'll see, we have to go to tractor supply to get chicken food tomorrow after church, maybe just maybe we will be leaving with 6 pullets

OR maybe I'll be able to convince them to go to a feed store (if they are against adding 6 chicks to the flock!)

I'll let you guys know! I'm being devious here

lol but it was a question I was curious about...

Thanks again for the help! I really do appreciate it.

I love my chickens

Gretchen

 

[macdoogle]

One of mine quit laying in November and just started up again this week. No move just winter. Chicks are good at any time. Love those fuzz butts.

 

[animalsroc4evr]

Well we ended up getting up at 5:30 because of our pups needing to go out, and when we did we found it snowing... SO I had to get out there and check on my chickens, ducks, and goats. Well needless to say after getting everyone situated we all went back to bed and got up too late to go to church.. So no new chicks... I have a feeling my girls aren't gonna lay anytime soon due to the cold.

Regardless if we get more chickens this year we are still getting some keets and 2 goslings the end of this month.... BUT if I can find a feedstore that sells chicks at no min. I'm sure they wouldn't protest getting 2 or 3

 

[carybear]

I just moved from Utah to Louisiana and that 1500 miles did a number on my girls. I had one that had JUST started laying the days before we moved and I had nothing from the first of January until this week! So who knows, I'm just hoping that the other three start pullilng their weight around too...I want to stop buying eggs from the store already! My DH had a "talking to" with the chickens, he told them if they didn't start laying soon they'd be dinner. Not that it would really happen but less than two weeks later and I've got eggs...okay egg a day.

All I can suggest is be paitent. much like kids, they do things in their own way and own time table.