Why chooks wont lay

I have read all of the comments and the post and I cannot find anything that fits my hens problem. Could that have something to do with it? There all eating well and have water and cleaness and no signs of sickness… I would appreciate anything you can help me with! Hi Trina, It sounds like there has been a lot of changes to the coop recently! Hi Tami, This is very normal and nothing to worry about.

Aloha from Kamuela, Hawaii. I have RR Chickens. They laid about 20 in a nest and one of the hens sat on the nest for about 2q days. However yesterday she was not there and there are no eggs now? What happened to all the eggs? Hi Pono, It sounds like a predator could have eaten the eggs- is there any signs of intrusion into the coop? Then I borrowed a silky that hatched 3 more. I had 30 sold seven, 23 left plus 3 more babies back to My one hen is walking with open beak.

You mentioned that , it is because of cold. Rainy season here. Any medicine for that? I have 7 layers — used to get eggs a day.

Now we are getting maybe 1 a day. They get water and fed pellets oyster shell and granite. And free range in the afternoon and all day on weekends. We got them Easter of Hi Amy, It sounds like you might have a feather plucker in your flock- either that or mites.

Today she looks really down and is spending time on her own. Normally they hang around together and she normally runs over to me when I step out in the morning?? Thanks Kirsty. Then make sure to keep them warm, and put electrolytes into their water. If she continues to get worse visit your vet and get some antibiotics, Claire.

I have two laying hens, about 3 years old, that have stopped laying. For the past 2 weeks they have been fed laying feed. Otherwise they are fine and spoiled. Hi David, If they both stopped laying at the same time then it sounds like it was due to the non-laying feed. I would put them on a high protein layer feed for a few weeks to make sure they have enough protein in their body and then I expect they will start laying again. My flock was attached by a fox on May 9…one of the two remaining chickens stopped laying.

Plenty of food, water ect.. I have contributed her lack of production to shock. Do you think she will ever lay again? Hi Kate, So sorry to hear about your loss. If there was no physical damage to her- providing you give her plenty of food, water, love and time then with some luck she will start to lay again. I have 3 hybrid hens that are about 10 months old. They are in a large run most of the time, but free range for an hour a day too many foxes to allow longer. They are fed layer pellets, greens, fruit and have access to clean water and grit.

A few weeks before that, she went through a phase of laying several soft eggs at once. The weather here has been very wet. Any thoughts on what her problem is? Many thanks. Hi Lila, Soft eggs shells is normally a sign of calcium deficiency. Thank you for your reply. They have oyster shell in the mixed grit that I give them. I have one hen that is sitting in the nesting box.

It is summer time where I live and I am only getting three eggs a day. My ameraucanas and road island reds are less than a year old about six months. The mixed breed are about two years old. I am wondering why I am only getting three eggs a day. Thank you, TwinCity Do your best to keep them cool and well hydrated and then when the temperature drops they will continue to lay eggs. Claire, Thank you. I have been freezing milk jugs and putting them out in the water dish and changing the water every 4 hours or until the water jugs melt.

Is there anything else I can do to keep them cool? We have had our chickens for 6 weeks. One laid an egg every other day fora totalof 2 eggs after first arriving. Since then, nothing. We feed them the same stuff as the previous owners and plenty of it along with plenty of water.

Both chickens have laid before They are less than 1 year old. My wife and I havedecided these chickens will not get any more feed after this bag runs out. They can forage or we will have to find new homes. This has been such a pain. Has anyone else had this problem for so long? Also, you need to make sure that they feed they have is a high protein pellet for laying hens.

I am SO frustrated. I have 5 beautiful girls. They are 2 years old and have been good layers and lovely girls. This spring they were laying eggs per day for about a month and then went down to eggs per day. They get layer feed, oatmeal, pumpkin seeds, whole corn, watermelon, peaches, apples, and snacks of crickets and occasional tuna. They appear healthy, red waddles and combs, poop is great.

I treated them with Garden and poultry dust and throughly cleaned the coup, the roosts and every nook and crevice got dusted and all clean wood shavings. I would be interested to know if anyone else from the The Happy Chicken Coop community has any suggestions?

Hi I have two hens. Henrietta Ranger was laying but then dropped a few very soft eggs and then stopped all together. She has the right food layers , let out to forage most days, clean water, grit and oyster shell, tried tonic and ACV. Mildred Bluebell lays every day same environment and food. Anything else I can do? Many thanks, Rob. Hi Rob, It sounds like she has everything she needs to be laying eggs. How old is Henrietta- it sounds like she could be getting old and will naturally start to lay less eggs.

I have four hens that I keep on an allotment, which is fenced off and foxed proofed with a coop. Nope, in fact we are down to one egg every other day. They are let out early and the coop shut after they have wandered in of their own accord. I realise that they are not battery hens and I did realise that they would tail off, but they came almost to a complete stop when they were 1y9m old.

They will be left to live out their life, and I am thinking of getting another four, but in less than two years, I do not want to be left with 8 non laying hens to look after, I do actually want some fresh eggs from them. Hi Alastair, Wow your hens certainly are well looked after! Sometimes hens, especially hybrids, lay a huge amount of eggs during their first two years and then rarely lay anymore.

They have been breed this way for battery farming. No, she looked fine yesterday morning, maybe a sign was she went for the water first rather than the food, but they sometimes do that during the summer. Went to let them out this morning and she was still there, but dead. My hens have been consistently laying 5 eggs a day. Last week we changed their coop around a little — put new straw in and fenced off an area so that they can consistently have more free roaming space as I used to only let them out into my garden for about 2 hours a day due to my dog.

Hi Shelley, Changes in their environment can stop them laying. Is the problem that they only have about 9 and half hours in the paddock? I bought 15 Rhode islands hatched April 29th. Will they stop laying 2 months later in their first winter?? Hi Brock, They will definitely slow down with their laying but hopefully not stop completely! The only time they will stop completely is during their first molt.

Hi I went on holiday last week for a week. My mother in law looked after my chickens and i showed her everything I usually do. How long should I leave her before worrying. Though it sounds like she might be egg bound- I would check her for this. I bought 12 chicks from my local feed store and they are around 5 months.

A few just recently started laying small eggs so I bought some oyster shell crumble to help with the laying. We have been getting roughly around 2 eggs so far a day, but nothing for the past couple of days. Should I just wait? Am I rushing? I also noticed ground squirrels so I put a couple of smoke bombs in the holes and covered them up really good. So is is September in upstate NY. My three Sex linked goldens normally lay an egg a day, but the last two days have not been doing so, or if they have, they hid them normally they free range all day.

Is it too cold or too dark, do you suppose? The daylight is rapidly disappearing and my hens have also started to slow down their egg laying.

We just bought 6 girls. They were laying when we got them and now they are not. How long should it take for them to start laying again. I am sure we changed the diet as well, I do not know what they feed them. Hi Ritza, Give them a couple of weeks to settle in and they will be back to laying eggs, Claire.

Hi Claire, Any chance a hen will stop laying due to being cooped up? A few have just begun to lay two of which are MIA, but thats a whole different matter and we have had no success getting the two layers who are not MIA to lay IN the coop.

Golf balls, nope. Their own eggs, nope. Keep them cooped until later in the day, nope. They have plenty of room, water, food. We move the coop regularly to keep fresh ground under them its very wet here so the flies get crazy. One stopped laying all-together a couple days in but the other one has not been phased. The other still lays consistently she just goes back to her nest in the bushes every day to lay and have even had a brand new layer today.

Still no pretty blue eggs from our gal. Claire, we have 10 pullets, 8 who had just started laying in August Australorps and Cuckoo Marans and 2 different breeds who were purchased at the local fair in August and who I do not think had started laying.

A few of the Australorps were at the fair but returned home at its end. We have only gotten 1 -2 eggs from the entire flock each week since mid August, following the fair. All appear healthy and are fed a layer ration and crushed oyster shells, plus some veggies, lettuce, etc. They have plenty of light. We have a flock of older hens in a different coop on same feed who are laying fine. Hopefully one of our readers will share their suggestions, Claire. We have 2 seperate coops of hens. Back in March we bought 18 new chicks and when they got big enough, split them half and half between the two coops.

Each coop had a handful of older hens pretty much past their major laying days. Fast forward to now and one coop gives tons of eggs today we got 11 and the other gives almost none today 2. The bulk of these hens came from the same hatching and are all the same breed. Why would half our hens not lay? We have decided to let our birds rest this winter and not provide any extra light seemed natural and I see you are in favor.

I wonder if this will prolong their egg laying life span or will it remain the same? I guess the only way to tell would be to do a YEARS long study, but since I am new at this I was wondering if the study has already been done.

Hi Jennifer, No sure about long term studies but yes, it does keep them laying longer certainly. Hens are born with a maximum amount of eggs they can lay throughout their life- so forcing them to laying during winter burns them out as they hit this limit sooner. Our birds are yo. Blaming winter on the heels of a heavy molt. They love a good paste. Just some FYI. So glad I found this information! I was so worried about them. So double whammey!

I have two Easter eggers, one Barnevelder and one silkie. One egger started laying two weeks ago. They are all 24 weeks old. She layed five eggs. One every other day and then two each day. Next day I picked her up cause she was not herself and egg yellow squirted out of her. I got her inside the bathtub and since she was not a fan of bath time I applied a warm moist cloth.

Within a couple of minutes she squatted and laid a rubber egg. She was foraging all day a couple of days ago in the rain. She seemed really hungry!! Yesterday no egg, but she seems normal. We live in PNW. I give them oyster shells and started mixing layer pellets into grower pellets for about a week. Today I started only layer feed. I cut down on vegetables, I prob fed too many. I have 5 golden comments and two buff orpingtons.

When I got the commets I put them in with the orpingtons. Like normall, no eggs for 2 days but then I got eggs a day after that. Inside there run I had a smaller run with 5 week old chickens in it. This never affected them. It has been about 3 months since I got the commets and until last week he laid just fine. They started again but stopped shortly after. For about a week I got only 2 eggs a day.

I moved there coop a week ago and they still are only laying 2 eggs a day. I have feed my chickens mealworms from day 1. The love them! Please help fast!!! Hi Gabe, It sounds like your hens have had a lot of disruption over the last few weeks- with the flock additions and coop replacement. Ok, yesterday i got 4 eggs but today I got only 2 again. It just scares me that they went from a day to 2 in 1 days time! The molting is triggered by decreasing daylight.

They'll return to laying. Adding a lighting program could also help in the future. When we first got them right away the next day we were getting on average of 2 eggs a day. Then after a week they stopped. We were just giving them some sweet feed we had, so then we bought laying mash, which was pellets.

Meant to get the chopped. Anyway we don't know what to do. I have some chickens, recently I had one sitting on a nest She wouldn't eat or drink anything unless I hand fed and watered he.

She wouldn't get off the nest, yesterday I found her dead in the lot and 1 baby hatched. Can you maybe tell me what happened, her comb kept getting dull and faded. It's possible that she had mites. I'm lucky my birds have red mites, but many are clear colored and you just can't see them. My birds are OK until they're broody.

Sitting around in the nest box all day being bloodletted gets them anemic. I noticed that just as babies were hatching my bird was looking exhausted.

I thought the peeps kept her up all night, I gave her food, water, etc. I had no idea why I was getting bug bites. I knew my birds were itchy after the long hard winter -- but keeping them cooped up with the heavy snows led to dirty oily birds and tons of bird mites.

They need to bathe. I messed up. I caught her before she was too far gone, started cleaning up around her and her babies, now her babies are 8 weeks and she's OK, her color is back in her comb. I used diatomaceous earth, boric acid, and offered them sand, DE and wood ash in addition to their normal dirt for bathing in.

Sunlight, dust bathing, etc. But the 2nd hen to set a nest -- I kept an eye on her. Still mite issues. I might never get rid of the buggers. I kept her hydrated and fed, cleaning up around her, etc. Got her and her babies out of the nest as soon as the hatched. It's about 2 weeks later seems OK. Sure enough - mites. Look for them, check information online -- there's some bug bomb type of stuff but I didn't want to subject birds and babies to it.

Thanks for this! I think that's my birds' problem. They're leghorns, and our winters aren't so bad in southern New Mexico, so my birds only slow a bit in winter, have never stopped; so when all my birds started losing feathers and stopping laying at once, I knew something was wrong. Diatomaceous earth I got mite bites from holding one of my birds that was close to death. It was horrible.

If you make a dirt bath in a large plastic bin with regular dirt AFTER you've taken the mitey birds and treated them fully with the DT. Meaning holding them over a wheelbarrow filled only with DT and take handfuls and get it down to their skin and move it all around, especially around their bum and under their wings Do this everyday for a week or so and it does get rid of them.

Then leave the dirt bath with the DT available to all your birds and that should keep the mites at bay. I have one rooster and different kinds of hens. I found a hatched chick today and none of the hens seem to want to be the mother. Sooo, I'm taking care of it inside. When it gets large enough to go out, I'm sorry kinda embarrassed, does the mating with it's father affect anything or should I coup the new chicks separately?

If they mate do I need a different rooster? Once the chick gets old enough to fend for itself, it should be fine with a rooster. Every rooster is different. Some are too aggressive and others are nurturing. I have a flock of buff chickens of different age. I purchase about 6 new ones every couple years to keep up with egg production.

Get leg bands and mark your birds by year acquired. Keep track of which color is which year. Is it true or false that keeping a rooster with my laying hens will keep them laying longer, and more regular than if I did not keep a rooster. The rooster keeps them safe from hawks and other predators and keeps a look out at all times. It seems beneficial to keep a rooster for these reasons. My neighbor disagrees and he keeps his hens without a rooster and is upset when my rooster comes over to mate with his hens.

Please help me with these questions. Thank you! To us, the question "to have a rooster or not" is about whether you want fertilization and to hatch eggs -- or if you simply want eggs for the table. If it's the latter, a rooster is not needed, unless you just want one! A rooster will warn of predators but many folks who raise hens have a safe enclosure so that predators are already deterred. There is at least one other for getting a rooster. When I bought my current flock of laying hens 8 of them , it wasn't long before they were little more than clucking targets.

A family of hawks dive-bombed the, an opossum killed one, local dogs and cats stopped by for a free chicken dinner. It wasn't pretty. The little dude made the hens his within 24 hours. He acts like a LA gang-member. He took on the biggest hawk the first day. No more hawks. He took on two big dogs and a medium size cat within two weeks. They packed up and left too. There were two additional benefits: this year we they hatched our first chicks and I did nothing.

Mama and Rudy handled it all. Chicks are doing fine. The second benefit was that the various dogs and woodland creatures that were always tipping over my trash cans finally had to go out, get a real job and make an honest living. Go Rudy! I grew up with the chopping block and axe but was somewhat uncomfortable with it myself.

We used "gentle" killing of our ducks so I decided to try the method with chickens - works great. Kneeling, place the body of the calmed chicken between your legs. Bring the neck forward long and straight. Dig the fingers of one hand into the neck just below the head and hold the head and neck firmly.

Taking a sharp knife - I used a hunting knife - draw it firmly across the neck from below. One good cut will do it; if you have to do a second it is usually merely to cut the vertebral column. We hang them in the trees until they have bled out but that wouldn't be necessary as most of the bleeding occurs very quickly. Lay a steel bar across their neck right behind their head, step on both sides of the bar and pull their legs. The chickens head will come right off.

We butchard hundreds of chickens this way growing up. Keep a turkey fryer with boiling water handy to dip them in before pulling the feathers. Keep your freezers full. She may not be ready to lay eggs yet, they start at their own pace. Every hen is different, just as every person is different. There are many factors that come into play. She may not feel comfortable enough with you or the area she has to lay them. Many hens will not lay if they feel scared. The amount of day light may not be long enough.

She may not be getting enough of something, malnourished. Or it could just be that she has one and cannot push it out. If that is the case. She may just absorb the egg back into her body and recycle it.

She could be sterile, meaning that she cannot make eggs, it happens to a lot of animals. Of course there is the possibility that she is laying somewhere else, hiding them. Herself or other hens could be eating them. I say just wait and see what happens.

Calm down. It's just like human puberty, everyone starts at their own pace. Some won't start laying until they are a year old. Others start at 5 months. Give it time. Until then, hold her. Get her used to you. Spend some time with her. Feed her from your hand every once in a while, to make sure she has enough.

You should pick them up and hold them, almost daily, until they are about 10 weeks old. Then weekly after that, so they stay used to you. Please I need help. I have 60 broiler parent stock which they are 8month old. Check if they are getting enough water--too little can cause the birds to stop laying. Is the water frozen? Also, make sure that the birds are getting a balanced diet, about 16 to percent protein.

Make sure the feed also has enough calcium. Are they molting? If so, that may be a sign that their bodies are just resting and recharging for another round of egg laying.

Good layers will sometimes lay for about 50 or 60 weeks and then go through a rest period. As daylight hours decrease, egg laying is sometimes affected; hens need about 14 hours of daylight to lay eggs. If daylight is below that usually October through February , providing a little extra artificial light for those lost hours, might help.

One Cooperative Extension site recommends adding one watt light per feet of coop; turn the lights on in the morning for those added hours, so that the birds can roost at sunset. Stress also can cause a hen to stop laying--are there any predators or other things about that might scare them? New routines?

Changes in environment has their area become damp or chill, or too hot? Age and diseases may also affect laying.

I have 8 hens: 1 3-y. Langshan, 1 2-y. Cuckoo Marans, 2 1-y. Ameraucanas, 2 1-y. Barnevelders, and 2 m. Black Copper Marans. The Langshan hasn't consistently laid eggs since her first winter and she hasn't laid any eggs since this last spring. I fully expected the others to stop laying when going through molt, but not the new young, Black Copper Marans.

I expected them to start laying in July, which they did, and keep laying through the winter. No dice. What happened to the Langshan and the Cuckoo Marans?

Why are they no longer laying eggs? Why did the BCMs stop laying so soon? They are in a very large pen 30x90 and they also get rotated into other areas in my yard with netting 50x They get grass, bugs, table scraps only fresh and what they like , and organic feed. I rarely find eggs in odd places. A fox came through 5 weeks ago and grabbed one of the Ameraucanas, but I scared him off and saved the hen.

She was already molting when she went on antibiotics. I did not expect her to lay again until the new year. She is back to laying and I can't use her eggs because of the antibiotics. Hi I live in Oak Point, Manitoba. I was wondering if there is a way to find out if we are allowed to have chickens, and what guidelines we need to follow. Any help is appreciated. I am a newer chicken owner. We currently have 29 hens of mixed breeds that are about 18 mos old now we got them as chicks.

It's been a bit alarming as we thought we had another 6 months of good egg laying yet from our ladies. They all act healthy, lively and are eating good - both garden scraps and layer feed. I haven't seen a ton of feathers lately, but did notice some molting earlier this summer.

They have a large run, that is shaded with free access to water and I even have grass growing in boxes for them to get access to fresh grass when they want to, as well. No bug infestation, snakes, etc that we can find to cause stress. I do suspect that my Golden Laced Wyandottes are fighting as they're missing feathers along their heads they actually look like Turkens!!

Would that be enough to stress the whole flock though? Your chickens are probably molting loosing their old feathers and growing new while in their molt all the energy that normally goes into egg production goes into new feathers. They will start laying within weeks, depending on the breed and age of the chicken. Do chickens stop laying when the nest get full? We were on vacation for two weeks and returned to 3 full nests. We have not gotten any new eggs since we returned.

Did your chickens start laying again, and if so, how long did it take for the laying to restart? I have 2 hens. Returning from a two weeks holiday we had 27 eggs, just 1 short of normal. Apart from the day after we got back, one of my chickens is not laying. It has now been a week since we got back. Are chickens still good to eat at 3yr old. They are black sex links which are good for laying and eating. So are they still good to butcher and sell?

My girls laid all winter long! They come when i call and love the fresh sprouts i give them once a week! Why do all of my chickens want to lay in the same box? We have enough boxes for all of them but they all want in one box? I have a chicken question that I couldn't find anywhere online. We live in Northern Idaho and the days get short quick in the late fall and winter. We have done pretty good in keeping our chickens laying, as we had a heat lamp and light in the coop. But a couple of weeks ago we lost our electricity to our coop.

The egg production dropped off rapidly. They were out of the extended light for a couple of weeks almost. But we did get everything hooked up again. But it has been 10 days and still no eggs. Will we get more eggs this winter do you think or is it a lost cause until the spring? Happy New Years to all and I just joined today. As other members have posted my 6 hens only produce 1 or 2 eggs a day. They went through molting about 2 months ago and I live in central PA; getting colder of course but have good size pen and protection from cold.

I feed them mash, corn, and provide grit; always plenty of water. Should I try a different food? I give them some scraps but not a lot. I keep straw in their nests and they like some around the ground area.

Any suggestions are most appreciated. They are nice pets but I'm still buying eggs! When I was a boy, I had chickens for a 4H project. She put them in a pot of water and warmed it up. I took it out to the chicken house and placed it in the middle of the pen. Bingo, they started laying again I continued this for the duration of the cold weather.

Please keep all comments on topic, folks, or they will be deleted. And many thanks to the members of our community who have helped answer questions on this page! I recently got my hands on six Rhode Island reds, The previous owner said they would lay about a day, and at first they did.

Well now they have completely stopped laying all together! I went to feed them earlier today and they didn't even want to eat! Im worried, I live in louisiana. Could it be the heat? But they have also lived in louisiana there whole lives.

Could it be the move? But they were laying after the move! I need help!! Hi we live in Florida and have several golden comets. They molted a few months ago and a few of them are not regaining their feathers. The skin color is pink on the back and a bright red on their bottoms. Is there anything we can do to help with this process. As far as I can tell they are still laying with no problems. When we recently moved I adopted two bantam hens, coop and all.

They are about 5 years old. They will lose feathers around their neck and back first; this will then spread to their tail feathers and breast bone. It is also normally linked to daylight hours, so you can expect your chickens to start molting when the amount of daylight starts to reduce in the fall.

On average, a molt will last around 8 weeks. If you have a young, healthy chicken, this molt will be shorter- around 6 weeks. A chicken requires around 20 grams of protein to lay an egg. So your chicken only has enough protein to either lay eggs or molt. Any chicken which has high stress levels will not lay eggs. If you followed our advice on how to stop predators attacking your chickens, your chickens would be safe, but just the experience of an attempted attack is more than enough to stop your chickens from laying eggs.

High-stress levels can also cause your chickens to molt. And as we discussed above, whilst a chicken is molting, it will not lay eggs. This is because they need the protein in their body to grow feathers instead of making eggs. Adding or removing birds from your flock will alter the flock dynamics and cause the chickens a great deal of stress and anxiety for several weeks. Even if you introduce new chickens to your existing flock properly , chances are your girls will still be disrupted by the new chickens and will go off lay for a few days.

If you have a coop that is too small for your chickens , this can disrupt their egg-laying. If your chickens used to lay a ton of eggs, and suddenly, the nesting boxes are empty, they may have begun eating their own eggs. Rule out other reasons first, but if you are wracking your brains for a reason behind the eggs disappearing, it may be because they are eating them before you can retrieve them.

These are usually ceramic or porcelain, and once pecked a few times, hens become frustrated and stop trying altogether. Curiosity gets the best of them, and they test out the taste of their own eggs. Usually, they come back for more next time they lay…which may be why your eggs have disappeared suddenly. Plus, placing the egg, you want your hens to lay can help them learn the ins and outs of a good nesting box. However, if you follow the steps in this article, you can create an environment where your chickens will be very likely to lay lots of eggs for you!

It could be their diet, an infection, parasites, or not having enough daylight. Nests do NOT need to be any measure above the floor of coop. Very new to chicken keeping here! An unexpected bonus was the creation of storage space underneath the boxes.

I have a hen that for some reason will not lay. She is old enough by far and I have tried everything I can think of. I have 8 ladies laying eggs which are about 7 months old. All of a sudden one started laying soft eggs and I hand fed her some scratch grains with an abundance of oyster shell and she started right back up with three good eggs.

She is a happy AndHealthy girl with little stress So what else should I try before giving up on her laying more eggs. She still goes and sits on the nest for an hour or so every day which gives me some hope.

Good to know. Thank you Ricky. I got my coop just finished and then read this article and had a brief panic attack. So thank you. I will be leaving it as floor design as well. Hi I have 2 Rhode Island Reds who are just about 16 months old. The other one broke the eggs and laid nothing. Since then the layer has laid approx 3 eggs a week and the other nothing. Recently I give them some mixed corn just as a treat on a couple of occasions and now I have no eggs at all for over a week.

They free range out of their coop for over 12 hours a day, have lovely grass area in a portion of a field and have fresh water and clean house. What might be wrong? Hi Fiona, What is their water supply like- fresh clean water is a must! Also, as they free range all day is there a chance they could be laying eggs elsewhere and not in the nesting box? What kind of light can I use to give artificial light to my girls? I am feeding patina eggs layer feed and change water every day and they are out of the coup from sun up to sun down.?

Hi Brandy, They are still very young, however I would expect them to start laying eggs within the next 4 weeks or so without a light. I have a coop, and the nesting area is elevated with a ramp. But as far as I know, they refuse to go up. Another quick question. And I am concerned. Do you have any idea what the problem could be?

Also, you will find they can and will just hop straight up into the coop and skip the ramp all together… Claire. Not sure if the problem is petsisting. I had the same issue with my new hens for a couple weeks. The problem went away when I did two things. Not sure which was the solution. Firstly I put some extra thin strips of wood across the ramp giving them more grip.

So it ended up being a 5mm high and 1 cm strip of wood across the ramp spaced at about 6 cm spacing. The chickens started going up the ramp almost immediately but then stopped and refused to go in trough the entrance to the coop. So I widened the opening to 30cm x 30cm.

Even my two silkie hens which were bought from a breeder, where they had never had a ramp in their coop, quickly started going up and downthe ramp. The silkies even sat side by side blocking the entrance until the much larger hens reckoned enough was enough and pushed past or over them.

Now the two large hens Langshans jump from ground to top of the ramp andvife versa while the silkies still walk up and down. We locked them in the coop for a week and they now know that as home. We did do this early on, when they were pretty young. Hi, I have 5 hens. All are 17 months old and all lay almost daily except the Black Cuckoo Marans, who has never laid an egg.

I have a mixed flock. She is second in the pecking order, so is not stressed. She broods in one of the 4 elevated nesting boxes. What is a lash egg? What is the nutritional difference between the eggs I can get at a grocery store and eggs my hens lay at home? Related Items:. Hen Helper Probiotic Supplement, 32 oz. In Stock. Chicken Fun Toy In Stock. Chicken Harness In Stock.