Young Plymouth Rock Egg-laying Mystery

m_friday12

Hatching
Jun 10, 2020
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My sweet 30-week barred Plymouth Rock hen was an absolute machine when she began laying. Like clockwork, she would hop into the nesting box and produce an egg for us ever day around midmorning. In the past 10 days, though, she has completely stopped laying, and I don't know why!

For some background: I've searched their run and can be confident she is not "stashing" her eggs somewhere without my knowledge. She is also the same energetic, entertaining bird she has been all along: great appetite for food and water, and no odd behavior.

Two ideas come to mind. The first (and easiest) explanation is that fall came a little early to our neck of the woods. We had an early snowfall, but have since returned to warmer weather. Our days are still 12+ hours long. I know chickens typically stop laying during the winter, but this seems excessively early...by my count, it'll be over 180 days until our days lengthen again! If this is the culprit, is it really normal to have egg production for only a two-thirds of the year?

The second is that she suffered what seems to be a minor injury to her beak. A layer on the front of her beak seems to have been chipped or peeled off. I've treated the area with Vetericyn, but I've seen no blood and she does not react with any pain to the area being touched. Is this a cause for concern?

Thanks for your thoughts!!
 
Usually the young pullets continue to lay throughout the autumn so I would lean toward the extra stress that was added by the beak injury. Once she is fully healed it will take some time to get out of the stress.
 
I would agree with PP and assume it is stress related. I had a Barred Rock (purchased in early April of ‘19) and she laid steadily throughout the winter here in MN. She slowed some but was consistent until she molted. However, I do have a friend that had a flock that was about a month older than mine and most stopped laying in early Sept for what seemed like no reason. She ended up putting a heat lamp in the coop and this prompted them to lay again. I don’t assume that’s what you need to do since it’s only one of your birds vs the entire flock, but thought it interesting that she had that problem.

do you have other pullets/hens and are they laying?
 
My Barred Rock also stopped laying. She was our first hen to lay, and laid three eggs at about 20 weeks or so, then she hasn't laid for 6 weeks since then. No idea why. She seems totally healthy otherwise. Our other hens have started to lay consistently.
 

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