Why are the eggs gone???

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egainer

egainer

Hatching
5 Years
Aug 14, 2014
5
0
7
Hey everyone! I am new and joined because I am desperate!! I have 6 silver laced wyandottes and 2 golden laced. The silvers are about 7 months old and the goldens are about a year old. I know they are not consistent layers, but they began laying right on time and I was getting 7 eggs, plus or minus one, a day. In the last two weeks I have been getting only 2 a day and they are from my goldens. My silvers have stopped laying all together! I have added a fan for more ventilation because we are in Florida and it is hot hot. They have plenty of sun, plenty of food, lovely nesting boxes that they once laid eggs in, and I am not sure what to do next. If anyone has any suggestions it would mean the world to me!! Thank you!!
 
Here are some of my guesses
-the heat may have caused them to become stressed and not lay
-snakes may be eating your eggs, BUT i dont know of a snake to eat about 5 eggs per day
-have they been terrorized or chased by something? They may be stressed due to that
-has anything changed? like going from free range to being cooped up?
-are you feeding laying pellets? They young hens need to be given enough calcium to make an egg shell every day
 
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Hello there and welcome back to BYC!
frow.gif


Lots of things can cause chickens to stop laying including molting, hot summer days, cold snaps in the winter, illness of some sort, bad diet, lack of protein just to name a few. And if you free range, they could be laying in some secret nest somewhere.

So make sure they are on a very good diet, lots of fresh cool water every day. Try to keep them as cool as possible....run fans, hose the area down with water, put ice in the water fonts, feed cool treats, ect....

You might also give them an over all exam looking for any health issues like mites, lice, crop issues, injuries, respiratory ailments, etc....If they have worms, this can stop them from laying as well.

Here is a good thread on possible reasons why your birds may not be laying...https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/423023/why-arent-my-chickens-laying-here-are-your-answers

Good luck and I hope you can get down to the bottom of this soon!
 
Great thoughts! Thank you. I haven't seen any signs of snakes but I will keep a closer eye out and see if that is a possibility. We did move them into a bigger coop about a month ago. They laid fine for about two weeks and then halted production. They do free range daily now for an hour or two. So that could be a factor to it as well.
 
Welcome to BYC! Please make yourself at home and are here to help.

X2 molting, lack of water or calcium, predators, stress and sickness all effect laying.

Make sure they have water and extra calcium along with their feed. Make sure there are no predators or pests in the coop and run. Make sure they are healthy stress free.

Good luck!
 
Welcome to BYC! Glad you decided to join our flock. I'm sorry your hens have stopped laying, but the other BYC members have suggested a lot of reasons why that may be the case. I would definitely recommend posting on the Laying link given by TwoCrows. Please feel free to ask any other questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. I hope your hens start laying again soon. Good luck.
 
Thank you for all the help!! I am going to try some additional ways to cool them off like watering the area and giving them iced treats and hopefully that will help them out!! I appreciate it!!
 
Hello :frow and Welcome To BYC! You've gotten some good suggestions/links above, hope you start getting more eggs again soon.
 

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