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

[speckledhen]

Dog food is too high in salt and so is catfood. If you want to add protein, best to use salmon or mackerel, but rinse it off and that will remove some of the salt in the can.

I doubt it's the feed. To comment on Purina, though, Purina Layena is a vegetarian feed. I do not use Purina Layena because of that. They feather better with animal protein. If you supplement that, it would take up the slack. Chickens are omnivores, not vegetarians, and it's best to gear their diet toward their natural inclinations, IMO. Vegetarian feed was a huge fad and many folks started having feather picking issues after that.

That said, this time of year, most hens are not in full production anyway.

 

[leefarms]

i haven't got maybe one or two eggs a day. i have about 10 hens and only one at the best is lying. dear GOD give me more eggs PLEASE!I know the weather is some of the problem,but i do everything i know or read to do .HELP NO EGGS! not good.

 

[Jan336]

What would be ideal for me to feed? I have a 6 month old black sex link hen, and 2 adult (older) Silver Dorking Roosters. She has not layed at all yet. I am feeding them Big M Feed pellets mixed with cracked corn. Could this be why she has not layed yet? I have not ever supplied grit or oyster shells. (Only owned the Roosters for a few months though) and my hen has never had any. Any advice?

 

[speckledhen]

They get grit themselves if they have access to the ground, especially if they free range. Cracked corn must be used only as a treat or to train them to come home from free ranging (shake the can and they come running) or maybe a few handfuls thrown out once a day. If you feed too much of it, their protein levels go way down. Layer feed is usually at least 16% protein, sometimes more, and corn is only about 8%. It also has higher calcium levels than other feeds, which they need for shell quality and I supplement limestone calcium and sometimes oyster shell as well. If you aren't overdoing the corn, that is probably not what is causing the slow production. The time of year is the main culprit for most right now.

 

[HenNewbie]

I had 3 buffs aged 20 months. Egg production had declined.

One girl was experiencing rapid feather loss around her neck (the feathers seemed to be broken at the shaft near the skin). All three girls were spending a lot of time picking at themselves - not each other.

My local farm store suggested they had mites/lice and I treated them with the suggested powder. I now believe I used too much of the powder on each bird. Egg production came to a complete halt for all three birds which made me wonder if it was molt and not mites/lice. Others suggested that they had just gotten too old to lay. This is my first endeavor with poultry, so I don't know what to think.

I kept checking their 'playhouse' pen environment. They are confined to their environment and seldom allowed to free roam due to our aggressive dogs (Jack Russells). What I would find was liquidy feces, the wood chip litter would be saturated. Also, there would be large white flakes which would take flight when I opened the door to clean out the hen house portion - I still don't know what they were? part of the feathers? part of the feather shafts?

Their diet consisted of Purina Layena and scratch (a few small handfuls a day) and assorted table scraps (mostly greens during the summer).

Another behavior of my girls was that one would use her feet to tip the water dispenser consequently mucking up the water every day. The other girls did not exhibit the same behavior. I use the double sided water dispenser hung from the underside of the pen (along with their food).

The girls did not seem listless or ill... I am pretty sure that one of the girls had previously stopped laying, but I was still getting an average of 2 eggs per day - awesome layers - until I doused them with the powder. Then not a single egg for roughly six+ weeks.

I want to get more birds, but would like to get some input on what could have happened. I did read the links at the initial post, saw a note about lack of salt? Also, a note about watery poo? Another about too much corn (scratch?).

Any thoughts or insights would be appreciated.

PS - I also noticed that in the weeks prior to the halting of their egg production, that one of the girl's eggs were quite fragile and most of the eggs had little brown/red spots - I don't have a rooster.

 

[duckinnut]

Just cant grasp this non laying thing, I have 10 layers less than a year old. Have 6 RIR and 4 Barred,right now am averaging 7/8 a day and 9 on sunny days here in good ole Mass with no artificial light. Wish they would slow down,cant eat or give them away quick enough. They love to eat and drink,when they ran out of water one day production went down to 5 the next then went right back to 8 the following day.Guess there are just very happy,every time we go to the coop they think goodies are on the way.

 

[Henderson Hen House]

My BO and Australorp pullets are almost 20 weeks old and are very red in the face but their combs and wattles (sp?) are still fairly small. Is there no chance of them laying until their wattles and combs mature to full size or can they lay first and have their combs grow in to full size after?

 

[chicken_crazy93]

I know this falls under the health of chickens but I have found that a wormy, either very mild you can't tell to almost sickly, hen can effect layin. This is a great thread by the way.

 

[codybird]

I had 6 Black sex-links that I got April 2nd 2009. Got my first eggs at about 20 weeks, mid August of 2009. Laid like fools until November 2009. I'm talking 4 to 6 eggs a day. Dropped to 1 to 2 eggs through the winter of 2009-2010.

Not worried. One hen died for some reason in March 2010, others were healthy and still laying 3 to 5 eggs daily. Hot as the blazes this summer in South Carolina but chickens still producing. I think all of my hens started molting in August 2010 for about 6 weeks.

At the end of August 2010, a Raccoon got into the pen one night and eviscerated one of the chickens. After detaining him overnight by using the remaining parts of the dead hen and a live trap, he died suddenly from a lead poisoning. The trap was right next to the pen but the chickens walked right up to the then alive raccoon with no apparent worries whatsoever. Meaning they didn't seem stressed

The remaining 4 hens have not laid an egg since! Almost 5 months and not one egg.

No hidden eggs, no egg eater, no stress, Layena food access 24/7, fresh water every day, two handfuls of scratch every day, healthy hens, good poop, etc.

These chickens are 21 months old and have quit. I will wait until warmer temps and longer days of spring to see if that is the issue.

At least I know it's not just mine.

I don't remember this being that much of an issue here on the boards during the winter of 2009.

Update: All four are laying. Jan. 31,2011

 

[cheri87]

I have 2 RIR's and 2 buff Orp's. Three of them started laying this September when they were 20-22 weeks. My first layer was one of the Orp's. She stopped laying around 2 months later when the days started getting shorter. The RIR's have been laying fairly consistently until just last week. We're now lucky to get an egg every other or every 2 days now, but the weather has been horribly rainy with dark days here in Washington.

My problem is my one buff Orp. About a month after the other 3 started laying, we found a few completely shelless eggs under the roost on the floor of the coop. We also got a couple of extremely thin shelled ones, or ones that just seemed to have a membrane with no shell. We suspected Bella, since the other 3 were laying their typical eggs at the typical times. This lasted about a week and stopped. She has never laid anything since that week. She also has a small, pale comb and small waddles. Could she have some disease that none of the other birds have or can catch or is she just never going to mature into a layer due to some genetic disorder?

They get Layena layer feed and veggie scraps from the kitchen, occasional yogurt and cheese, lots of water, have access to extra oyster shell calcium, and do not free range.