Some of my hens have stopped laying. is there a way to tell which ones are laying and which ones aren't?
poor egg laying
How many hours of sunlight are they getting? With the days growing shorter you have to supplement the light or they won't lay. I think I read somewhere they need 14-16 hours a day.
No way to really tell who is laying unless you camp out in their pen. They do need more light to lay, however that doesn't seem to bother some of ours, they lay anyway. I think it just depends on the hen.
The poultry books tell you to check the birds' vents and look at the color of their legs to see who's laying and who's not, but that has never worked for us. That's why we just do a four year rotation; we get a different kind of chick each spring and once they start laying we butcher out the oldest group, who would be about four years old by then.
We do have one Cuckoo Maran from last year; they lay very dark eggs so we can tell that she hasn't given us anything for months. Unfortunately for her, it's very obvious that she's a slacker. She's going into the freezer when we do the four-year-olds.
That would never work for us Green, the almost 4 year olds we have are such pets that the kids would be devestated if we ofted them, so they will just stay regardless if they lay or not.
No one here gets sentimental about chickens, so it's not hard to do. We have about fifty so they're just a flock of chickens to all of us. We learned not to make pets of our critters when we raised lambs and kids!
My Mom always looked at their combs.....bright reds were laying, dull reds were not. Are they ready to molt? Another way is to hold the hen under your arm with her head to the back and butt in the air. With that hand hold her legs so you keep her under control. Use the first 3 fingers of your free hand to measure the space between the pointy bones on either side of her vent. With the size of my fingers I find that 3 fingers fitting between the bones indicates that she I laying. 2 or 1 tells me she isn't. Suppose that depends on the size of your hens, too. Do make sure they have plenty of light and may need worming or tx for mites. The older they the less they lay but I've had certain hens lay at least some for over 10 years. Good Luck, hope this helps.