My hens finished molting about two weeks ago. I still have no eggs. We live in Lebanon, MO, and it is dark by a little after 5pm and I let them out of their coop around 9am. I am feeding them food "for laying hens" but no eggs. HELP!!!
Bill is threatening to cook them for supper!
My hens aren't laying
Well, to get them going after a molt you have to up their protien a lot. I am feeding feed for game chickens and milk + for cows to my hens to get them to produce. you may want to put a timed light to come on about 4 oclock in the morning to get them up early. I got mine going with these methods. I am really feeding them a lot of feed to fatten them up for winter and to keep the egg production going. hope this helps.
up protein- dog food or cat food helps with that or take eggs hard boiled and crush shells in it and feed it to them. up the calcium-give them oyster grit, eggs shells give it too if they eat that crushed. they also sound like they r cutting back due to winter since lighting is less all chickens do that but some still continue to lay off and on through winter.
tell him it is natural and they don't need to be stew for not laying, they don't lay every day of the year and many things can cause them to slow down or stop laying.
Yes, mine are on very slow or dead-stop right now as far as laying goes. They will start up again - they just need a little time off. Remember, they don't get weekends off! Winter is their down time - they need a rest sometimes. The ones in the egg factory settings have artificial light and that makes them lay constantly but they are not in good health. Just let them be - they will start again. I have about 50 hens of laying age and this time of year I am getting 2 to 5 eggs a day.
Hi Cajunp: There a number of reasons that chickens don't lay readily through the winter, and one of those reasons has to do with the breed of chicken, as well as the hours of light they experience daily. I don't know what breed you are dealing with but I have eight breeds in a flock of twenty five, and I 'm getting eighteen eggs daily from that flock. I also have another flock of twenty and am only getting seven to eight eggs daily. Tell your husband don't be to hasty, they'll rebound. Haystack
hi cajunp.
I agree with and second all that has already been said. I have a light on a timer for my girls that goes on at dark and stays on for an additional 4 hours. I chose night rather than morning, because one of mine squawks up a storm when she thinks its time to come out of the hen house. So she was squawking at 5am with artificial AM light. ha!
I've got three girls and I'm getting 3 eggs every-other day.
THANKS SO MUCH! I have a timer I used to make the lights go on at night for a while.....used it when traveling. Bill can run an electrical cord to the shed, and all we need is a drop light!
I will make additions to their menu and we will be back in business.
One other thing, which I learned very abruptly this morning. :-)
Sometimes, you might THINK your hens are not laying, but they are, just not where you want them to!!
Our nesting boxes are mounted on the wall of the coop at floor level. I was looking for eggs and heard a little noise. I didn't see anybody in a nest box, so I kept looking around and kept hearing little clucks. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. We use the deep litter method in the winter, so I began checking the floor in case somebody had gone into the litter a bit. Nope, they had dug a hollow out UNDER the nest boxes on the bottom row. I just got 15 eggs out of it. Geesh...no wonder I was getting so few eggs! LOL! I bought them all in and candled to ensure they were not developing, and then did the float test. All good. Wow, better make an omelette for dinner!
HA! Well that clears that up! Too funny.
Well as luck would have it, I was just called to the table for our omelet.
Another mystery solved! That must have been a site to find her crammed UNDER the boxes! All that work building boxes and they choose to get under them. Its like kids playing with the wrapping from the expensive gifts! Or the cardboard box! LOL
cjunp, good luck with the layers! It sounds like you have gotten top notch advice! How is MO this time of year?
C Moxon: It's a beautiful thing when the chickens throw us an easter-egg Hunt. Haaaaa Haaa. Moxon you'r to much. Haystack
I hear you Haystack! Now I wonder how many other secret stashes I haven't found yet...I need something like a metal detector that's tuned in for eggs. An egg detector. Can somebody invent one please? If you do, I will patent it for you.
Mox