Why Aren't My Chickens Laying? Here Are Your Answers!

[Tacampbell1973]

Quote:
Hello Ducks, I have read your post and find that it is really helpful and most of it I had rather already suspected but was glad to find confirmation. only one thing that i don't do and am not sure how to do is keep food for them out constantly...I have tried and they dump it all over the ground and waste it. So I tried the fermented route but stopped as the smell was obnoxious in my house...I have a huge mouse problem outside and as yet cannot afford a metal trash can to store food in....i am ona limited income and with 19 birds they take allmost all my spare income on food. No joke they eat constantly. I mix their food in a bowl with hot water to soak it and they wolf it all down. I can't seem to get an accurate answer on how much they should be eating, but the common answer is that they should always, always have access to food. How can I do this and not have them waste it? I am getting desparate and resorting to feeding them unhealthy food sometimes jiust to fill them up ie. top ramen noodles minus the salty sauce packet, white bread etc....any solid advice woould be so very appreciated. thankyou. Oh yeah and also was wondering about your thoughts on water at night when penned up. I read here that not to in freezing weather as it would promote frostbite. So I havent' been but feel like i should give them access to water at all times.

 

[ducks4you]

I find that most supplies meant for other livestock work great for chickens. I always have extra rubber feed bowls for my horses. Get one of those. I have to fill a small one 2x/day for my 34 birds, but the number is gonna drop soon bc I'll be butchering the extra young roosters that I bought as straight run. If I wanted to just fill it 1x/day I'd buy a 10 inch deep horse rubber feeding bucket. Even the smaller ones, about 15 in. diameter, are too heavy for chickens to dump. I also prefer pellets bc they waste less than with crumbles.
RE: layers no longer laying--
I tt the Amish bc we shop with them, ~one hour from our house, and my farrier is an Amish man. They don't keep their laying flock more than one year. At that point the eating birds start getting tough, and the # eggs/day goes down. I kept a 2yo layer and she lays about 3-4 eggs/week, but my younger layers lay 6-7 eggs/week.

 

[Cass]

I find that most supplies meant for other livestock work great for chickens. I always have extra rubber feed bowls for my horses. Get one of those. I have to fill a small one 2x/day for my 34 birds, but the number is gonna drop soon bc I'll be butchering the extra young roosters that I bought as straight run. If I wanted to just fill it 1x/day I'd buy a 10 inch deep horse rubber feeding bucket. Even the smaller ones, about 15 in. diameter, are too heavy for chickens to dump. I also prefer pellets bc they waste less than with crumbles.
RE: layers no longer laying--
I tt the Amish bc we shop with them, ~one hour from our house, and my farrier is an Amish man. They don't keep their laying flock more than one year. At that point the eating birds start getting tough, and the # eggs/day goes down. I kept a 2yo layer and she lays about 3-4 eggs/week, but my younger layers lay 6-7 eggs/week.

Depends on the breed. Production breeds are DONE at age 2. Not waiting for the eggs after the first molt means you are getting smaller eggs. The one big production egg farm I am familiar with (more than I wanted to be, actually) gets rid of their White Leghorns every 2 years, cuz after the age of 2 they all but stop laying. (Rhode Island Reds, too) However if you plan to eat your laying hens, one year is about the max age you want to butcher at. The big farm sends all their 2 year old birds to Campbell's soup in NJ. They don't eat them personally.

How long you keep your birds depends on what your goals are. If you are selling eggs to add to the family budget, then one year and done is fine. If you are looking for a few eggs for your family and some chicken tv, then you would keep them longer, counting the eggs as a bonus.

 

[Tacampbell1973]

Um Hello again Ducks4You, I know which feeding bowls you mean, I used them with our horses too, but the problem really isnt that they are dumping out the food so much as they are standing there billing it out onto the ground and then walking on it. I have been wetting it down Ilately and mixing it thoroughly with scratch because I am tryiing to break a bad habit I started from birth with them of fresh corn mixed with their food plus scratch. All microwaved together. So now when they are just getting pellets, they are billing through it to look for corn that isn;t there...at least not the whole kernels.. Like i was saying I throw two cups of scratch in with it so they can still have their beloved corn but I can';t keep giving them so much corn. To put it politely, they are not digesting it solidly.....and making quite a mess with the excrement. Too much corn. I was debating hanging feeders as an alternative.Do you think that would help? They are wasting quite a bit of food.

 

[Cass]

Um Hello again Ducks4You, I know which feeding bowls you mean, I used them with our horses too, but the problem really isnt that they are dumping out the food so much as they are standing there billing it out onto the ground and then walking on it. I have been wetting it down Ilately and mixing it thoroughly with scratch because I am tryiing to break a bad habit I started from birth with them of fresh corn mixed with their food plus scratch. All microwaved together. So now when they are just getting pellets, they are billing through it to look for corn that isn;t there...at least not the whole kernels.. Like i was saying I throw two cups of scratch in with it so they can still have their beloved corn but I can';t keep giving them so much corn. To put it politely, they are not digesting it solidly.....and making quite a mess with the excrement. Too much corn. I was debating hanging feeders as an alternative.Do you think that would help? They are wasting quite a bit of food.

Um Hello again Ducks4You, I know which feeding bowls you mean, I used them with our horses too, but the problem really isnt that they are dumping out the food so much as they are standing there billing it out onto the ground and then walking on it. I have been wetting it down Ilately and mixing it thoroughly with scratch because I am tryiing to break a bad habit I started from birth with them of fresh corn mixed with their food plus scratch. All microwaved together. So now when they are just getting pellets, they are billing through it to look for corn that isn;t there...at least not the whole kernels.. Like i was saying I throw two cups of scratch in with it so they can still have their beloved corn but I can';t keep giving them so much corn. To put it politely, they are not digesting it solidly.....and making quite a mess with the excrement. Too much corn. I was debating hanging feeders as an alternative.Do you think that would help? They are wasting quite a bit of food.

If you are feeding scratch grains and/or corn in addition to layer feed that is a contributing factor to low egg count. Chickens eat worms directly from the earth and each other's poop.....pick up your feeder and night and put it back down in the morning. If they are hungry they can eat what is on the floor in the morning. I think the reference to having enough food is said because some people beleive that each chicken eats (let's say) 1/2 cup of food a day. Then they count their chickens, divide that number in half and put out that many cups of food. Period. For the Day. Now maybe the 1/2 cup they believe each chicken eats is right, maybe it's not. Maybe it's right in the summer and not in the winter; maybe it's not right at all....so people say to make sure they have access to food "at all times".

No, hanging the feeder didn't help my waste situation. Nothing I tried did....so I let them waste it, hoping they eventually eat the mess from the floor when they run out of food in the feeder. They do eat every speck of the dust in the bottom of the pan if I add hot water to it.

 

[spatula]

My chickens have been laying since September and have suddenly stopped. I thought they might be molting but I'm not sure. There has been a recent infestation of really tiny creepy crawlers. They seem to bite me if tucked away in a warm location but the chickens don't appear stressed and haven't lost any feathers. Any ideas? Please help!

 

[Cass]

My chickens have been laying since September and have suddenly stopped. I thought they might be molting but I'm not sure. There has been a recent infestation of really tiny creepy crawlers. They seem to bite me if tucked away in a warm location but the chickens don't appear stressed and haven't lost any feathers. Any ideas? Please help!

Ahh, but they are stressed. Not in the way you are thinking, but their bodies are losing blood to those little insects that infest them and their bodies are stressed. Dust them with Sevin or DE or wood ashes a couple of times to kill the bugs and see if they resume laying. (Chickens have very little blood to begin with, so even a small loss stresses their body)

You don't indicate where you live, but this is the time of year for chickens to stop laying in the northern hemishere. Days are shorter so they don't lay. If you suppliment their light and they still aren't laying it is the bugs. If you don't suppliment light then it is the bugs and the short days. On the thread I frequent there is a member with a flock of over 50 birds and is getting less than 7 eggs a day. My flock of 14 is giving me 0 - 2 eggs a day this time of year.

Get rid of the infestation and wait til March. They will start laying again.

 

[spatula]

Ahh, but they are stressed.  Not in the way you are thinking, but their bodies are losing blood to those little insects that infest them and their bodies are stressed.  Dust them with Sevin or DE or wood ashes a couple of times to kill the bugs and see if they resume laying.  (Chickens have very little blood to begin with, so even a small loss stresses their body)

You don't indicate where you live, but this is the time of year for chickens to stop laying in the northern hemishere.  Days are shorter so they don't lay.  If you suppliment their light and they still aren't laying it is the bugs.  If you don't suppliment light then it is the bugs and the short days.  On the thread I frequent there is a member with a flock of over 50 birds and is getting less than 7 eggs a day.  My flock of 14 is giving me 0 - 2 eggs a day this time of year.

Get rid of the infestation and wait til March.  They will start laying again.

 

[spatula]

Thanks Cass. I live in the southern hemisphere so the days are long now. If I dust them how do I prevent the critters returning?

 

[Cass]

Thanks Cass. I live in the southern hemisphere so the days are long now. If I dust them how do I prevent the critters returning?

Take all the bedding out....oh shoot....could you use the search at the top of this page and search for bug prevention. I just spent 12 hours the hospital with my Mom and I just don't have the energy to type out the instructions and/or will forget an important step if I try. If wasn't so tired.....