Why not laying any eggs?

[niccichick]

Hi;

This is NicciChick. Here we are in So. Cal. and the weather is finally turning cooler. My girls are 1 year old now and I've started to see a drastic drop in egg production towards the end of our hot, hot summer and now. My girls started laying eggs when 5 months old and faithfully each laid 1 egg daily. That made for 10 hens laying 10 eggs each day. Along July time-frame when it got so hot here they dropped in production to about 5 eggs daily, then in hot August to 3 daily. Come September and October we averaged 2 a day. Now all of a sudden I am getting only 1 if that. For the past 3 days no-one has laid a single egg. They eat like crazy and don't seem sick at all. There are alot of feathers all about the coop and run so I assume they are molting. Two of my girls have very small and shrunken light pink combs instead of large and red. I am assuming those are my two who are laying when eggs do come and that everyone else is perhaps molting. Does this drastic drop in egg laying happen often in young hens and how long is it normal to see happen? I have 6 Buffies and 4 Black Austrolorps. One of them, I saw yesterday, seems to have dried mud stuck all over her bottom feathers so I need to rinse her backside off today. I cannot see any worms visibly in their poops, so I'm not sure what to check for and what to do. If they do need to be wormed I'd prefer to go organic if possible. I've been putting 1 Tablespoon of food grade DE in their yogurt daily and 2 teaspoons of ACV in their fresh water daily trying to preventively keep worms away. I clean their coop and run often and they get lots of organic produce and organic lay pellets, plus black oil sunflower seeds and dried mealworms daily. Help! I'd so appreciate any wisdom anyone has.

Blessings,
NicciChick

 

[debid]

Oh, I feel your pain. I suspect most of your flock is molting. I noticed that mine lightened in the comb/wattes and got really grumpy and standoffish during the molt. My flock molted weeks earlier than I'd anticipated (they're nearly done now!) and the younger birds that I'd added (barely 1, if that... supposedly...) joined in the molting party so my plan for young hen eggs to see me through the winter also flopped.

I've added supplemental lighting on a timer to try to bring them back into production sooner. From what I've been reading, they might or might not resume before the solstice whether I do anything about this or not but I'm improving the odds by pushing the daylight hours back to 14. And next year I'll know.

 

[niccichick]

Thanks. I've gott supplemental lighting and use it as soon as the days get shorter so that they have enough light to continue laying. I guess that because they laid an egg each day as soon as they started to lay I am expecting them to continue to do so. It just seems odd that for the past 3 months they have only laid 2-4 eggs daily when there are 10 of them..

Blessings,
NIcciChick

 

[Shane17]

Mine are doing the same. I'm assuming its just the time of year. I am in eastern Va my hens cut back back in Sept also. I have 8 hens and sometime 1 a day from 6-7 day. My E.E's have not laid in 1 1/2 mos. My black sex links, nh reds and orpingtons are laying every other day or so although the orpigtons eggs have been thin. Basically I'm feeding 8 hens and not getting much in return