Why aren't they laying?? 5 days = RIR 1 egg, ISAs 24 eggs???

[andaud]

I've got 5 ISAs and 5 Rhode Island Reds, they are 14 months old and have been laying for several months...
Admittedly it's winter time here in NSW but I'm getting 4-5 eggs daily from the ISAs and ZERO from the RIRs.. why is this so?
I have noticed that there is poo in the nesting box and one of the girls (RIR) likes to be in there at bed time.. can I change this behaviour or do I just need to wait until summer?

Your help would be much appreciated.

P.S. the 2 breeds have been together until this week when I separated them to get an idea of their laying habits.

Cheers.

 

[Judy]

I would not let a hen sleep in the nesting box.

Lots of birds slow down or stop in the winter. I don't know whether RIR's are prone to this or not.

It is possible you upset them by separating them. Any little upset can interfere with laying.

 

[cmom]

I agree with ddawn. I have RIR's and ISA's. I have not had any problem with their laying. Some are 2 yrs old and some are 1 yr old. I have some going through min molts and a couple that recently went through a major molt. They did slow down some then. Do you see any feathers around. It's no fun when they get used to sleeping in the nest boxes and then you reach in and get poopy eggs. This happened to me in the beginning. I thought it was cute. I finally got tired of cleaning the poopy eggs and the poop out of the nest boxes. My birds were sleeping in the nest boxes. I put milk crates in the nest boxes in the evenings and took them out in the mornings for a week. It seems to have worked. I did it with my hens and with my pullets.. Also I put a golf ball in each nest box. I would also make sure the roosts are higher than the nest boxes. The birds tend to go to the highest spot to roost. My original roosts were at the same height as the nest boxes. I have raised it to just above the boxes.

 

[shelleyd2008]

You say that you just seperated them this week, which ones did you move? If it was the reds, there's your problem. That, and the combination of the winter weather, can make them stop laying for up to a month.

This past winter, my dad's reds almost quit laying. We went from 2 dozen+ a day to about 6. The hens were then about 9-10 months old. So the cold weather definitely affected them.

As for the sleeping in the nest box, you shouldn't let them do that. Is there enough roost space for all of them? If so, you might have to block off the nests at night until she takes the hint.

 

[CoyoteMagic]

I'm dealing with the opposite right now. Heat and dry weather has caused mine to go from 8-10 eggs a day from 10 hens to 8-10eggs a week!!!

 

[bigtooks]

Quote:
do you feed them scratch at all?

 

[CoyoteMagic]

Quote:
do you feed them scratch at all?

Not during the summer. There are enough bugs and stuff out here for them to eat. I just provide their regular feed and oyster shell.

 

[andaud]

Hey everyone, thanks for your replies.

The girls have been through a couple of moves over the past few weeks... their shed was flooded and I moved them out a couple of weeks ago, when I returned them to the original shed.. this is when I effected the split. So.. yes.. lots of upset for the girls..
Reason being... one of the ISAs had a prolapse.. and when I checked out all 10 girls... the RIRs looked like their 'vent's' had never been used.. whereas the ISAs were obviously putting out! My reasoning behind the separation.

I find it amazing that the ISAs are still (during winter and with the moves and all) laying daily, whilst the RIRs have totally gone off the lay!!!!
Both have the same feed, conditions..etc..

NOTE:
Out of the 5 RIRs 2 still have very small (underdeveloped) combs and yellow legs... so I wondered if I had non productive girls.... does this happen?