Unfortunately, this problem can be hard to pinpoint because predators often lurk out of sight unbeknownst to us. If that happens, he may mount your hens too much, leading to stress and bare patches on their heads and backs. This is yet another potential cause of stress that can reduce or stop egg production. The hens may be laying eggs like you expect, but someone else gets to them before you. While this could be a human egg-thief, it could also be an animal or even one of the hens eating the eggs.
We already touched on having too many hens for your roosters, but the opposite can also be an issue. But this can lead to broodiness. In this situation, you will have to address the broodiness.
Another potential issue could be the weather conditions. Whether it is extremely hot or extremely cold, you may notice a drop in egg production. The good news is that this is easy to overcome with enough water and other methods in the summer and insulating the coop in the winter.
If you want to keep track of how many eggs your chicken lays, this spreadsheet should help. You can either fill it in on your computer or print it off and stick it up somewhere. Or maybe you just want a quick summary of the most important points? Check out these FAQs. When your chicken stops laying eggs, you should get to the bottom of the problem and address the source of the issue.
Or you can humanely dispose of her or turn the hen into a meat chicken. If your hen is broody, meaning she has fertilized eggs or thinks she does, she may not lay eggs for up to 21 days. If your hens stop laying eggs, you can try to come up with another purpose for them or just keep them as pets without a function.
Hens can be good bug catchers or provide meat. Disclosure : We may earn affiliate commissions at no cost to you from the links on this page. This did not affect our assessment of products. Find full disclosure here. Our chickens were out of water for a short time and 2 days after abruptly stopped laying eggs. How long does it usually take for them to start laying again? Hi Michele, Give them a good week with access to water and they will be laying again! My chickens free range they are fed organic layer pellets.
They have a snack block. Access to two water sources. They are laying type breeds. My chickens have layed eggs when i got them. But they have stopped for nearly a year but with your help that you have told me they have being laying 9 eggs in 2 days. Will she ever lay again? Nearly identical to my situation. Molted last fall first molt then started laying, stopped again in February after I switched food accidentally getting a low protein blend. Actually all three stopped laying, but once I switched back to the high protein diet two started back up.
Diega Rhode island red never started up again. She was 6 eggs a week!. Its been four months without eggs and her tail feathers havent returned. Shes seems healthy and happy, great appetite, energetic. Im stumped. If something gets in the cage and kills a couple of chickens will that cause the others to not lay? It seems to have happened to me. I had a rash of disappearances, some with evident feathers ,some not.
The hens stayed in the coop on their highest roost for long periods of time, and returned more often when free ranging. Best use a live trap with dry cat food. They LOVE it. We caught 5 in a month and sent them off to possum heven. More often they are actually an asset to the farm as they eat rats, snakes and a ridiculous amount of ticks as well! They are not aggressive creatures and they never carry rabies as their body temperature is too low to incubate the disease.
They have unjustly been given a bad wrap probably because they are not the most attractive creatures out there. This sight happened to appear on my facebook one day and it really changed the way I think of possums.
I actually invite folks to leave there unwelcome possums at my place so they can do what they do and they have never been a problem. As part of the food chain, foxes and coyotes will eat possums as they are an easy target.
Having some around may save your chickens from being the next meal! Maybe she has a cold? Is it cold where you are? We have a chicken that sneezes but she is laying. We have a gray fox eating our chickens. We lost 3 just over a week ago and our 4 that are left are not laying at all as of this week. I am not letting them free range as much because I cant afford to lose any more hems in the past year the fox has taken 10 pullets and 7 full grown hens and a baby goat. She has a den just outside our pasture somewhere and raises her kits there every year for the past 3 or 4 years.
We have tried varment control boxes. The work somewhat but tend to wear out quickly. Especially with goat rubbing against the fence all the time.
I have thought about just leaving out cat food in the far corner of my pasture, maybe that would detour her away from the chickens.
Any suggestions? I have 3 chickens 2 of them lay regularly and a 3rd one, a one year old Wellsummer, will sit on the nest but lately has not produced an egg. She had been laying one about every other day.
Should I be concerned? We have 10 hens and none of them have laid in the last three months. We give them layer pellet. They forage all over the large yard most of the day. Literally 0 pellets. Their poop all looks totally normal! How old are your hens? Are they eating a lot? Have you recently introduced any new breeds into your flock? I have run into this same problem… I received a brood of 12 from a friend, all hens and all are less than 2 years old. I got them home at night, hoping this would lessen their stress of transport and put them in a coop.
They were all laying just about everyday for almost 2 weeks, maybe three. It is now January and they are still not laying. None appear sick and their poop is regular. Thank you. Hi Jess, Are you feeding them any crushed oyster shell at the moment?
Also, how much sunlight do they get? New hens from a friends then after a couple weeks ZERO eggs!! All are 10 months to 2years old! This happened once with mine after I moved there coops. Later I found one big nest with 2 dozen eggs. I have the same issue now. My hens are 2years old. The only thing I can think of with mine is they are either eating their eggs or stressed because most of my mature hens, 5 total hide and roost in the top rafter part of my nest box.
They are trying their hardest to avoid my rooster and his son, a young cockeral who just end up with a beak full of feathers instead of the reward of mating. Maybe seperate the two boys for winter here??? Hmmmm, I always like to keep a roster or two because we sometimes sell fertle eggs for hatching. I had to give him away and then they were happy.
My rooster was harassing the hens all day and they got sick of him. Hermit crab food would be my guess? It has mad protein! Remember chickens are omnivores, they do eat meat. Mealworms, crickets, etc. Though I DID know a chicken who loved cheeseburgers…. One of my chickens found a rat, killed it and then ate it! Rats and mice are very high in protein and this may help. You can also hard boil eggs and smash them up shell also. You might try pouring a little hot sauce on their food.
Hot sauce does makes chickens lay more eggs. Try it — just a tiny bit. Hi, my name is Chanel and I live in Australia. My chooks are free range and I have an equal amount of roosters. They are let out in the morning to forage near the creek and get locked up at night. I feed them layer pellets and scraps. Despite the fact there are plenty of foxes at night and the hens have an equal amount of roosters by happy accident ,they lay like crazy.
I put it down to being largely left alone no dogs or people around harassing them all the time. Just giving them some peace and a reluable routine does wonders for all critters. Love your book and enjoy your birds everyone! Do you live in southern states? Cause we had this same problem.
And it turned out to be rat snakes, they would eat the eggs. I have four 2 year old black sexlinks, in the past four months three hens have stopped laying,except I get rubber eggs occasionally,always broken. I have fed organic layer pellets consistently since they were 18 weeks old. Fresh water,free ranging and I offer oyster shell free choice. They are probably laying their eggs outside somewhere, mine do that at times…. I lock them in run for a few days again to teach them where to lay again…….
Her comb is pale but she has no signs of illness. She only started laying in July. Any ideas? Hi Elise, Is she still broody now? Let me know! Parasites: This includes lice, mites and worms. The easiest way to treat any parasite it to spray both the chicken coop and the chickens with a poultry cleaner.
Something like Johnsons Poultry Housing spray should do the trick. You can put apple cider vinegar in there drinking water every day and it works well and is good for them… It even helps when they get runny poops etc…. Try diatomaceous earth, get the white kind, it is sold at the tractor supply store in large bags and it can be mixed with there food.
Sprinkle it around any areas that they hang around and especially in there coop, inside the coop needs to be dusted well and it is natural and not a chemical spray which is bad for there lungs as their respiratory system is very sensitive, please stay away from sprays and add apple cider vinegar to there water and they will be like new in no time….
Please research this. Please, please, please! They have fresh water, layer feed, access to forage in the yard, and no new chickens have been introduced. They stopped molting a month ago and still nothing. They were always pretty reliable.
They are only 2 years old and are mixed breeds. Was wondering what you think might be the problem and what we can do about it. Hi Cody, Thank you for getting in touch.
How much daylight do they get at the moment? Also how much protein is in their layer feed? Thanks for getting back to me. They get around 8 hours of light or so this time of year. It is the same layer feed we have had them on since they started laying a couple of years ago. Let me know how they get on…. Thanks for the tips! It has been slow but we are finally getting around 6 or so eggs a day. A low number but better than nothing. Thanks again!
Hie l have 15 hens in my back yard nut l pick only 2. If you need the egg supply you could consider fitting an artificial light in their coop. Our hens started getting broody, and we wanted more so we let them sit on the eggs and hatch. We then removed the rooster so that we could get unfertilized eggs again and have opened them up to roam freely with the sheep free range.
They all look healthy and the chicks are staying with the mothers, however we have now stopped getting eggs? Is this because they have chicks?
Hi Eric, How recently have the chicks hatched? She will need a few weeks after hatching the chicks and she will be back to normal! I have 12hens and one rooster I was getting eggs a day now I live in Blanchard ok we have a light on in the hen house and every thing else you have mentioned however their feathers on their backs are gone what causes this?
Hi Robin, Sounds to me like they could be molting! How long have their feather on their back been missing for? 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. Hmmmm this is a really interesting question Julia. They get light and a good feed, so what could be the problem? Out of my flock of 7, 6 are young and they seemed to stop laying. We get one egg every other day from one of our Americana but that is it. They free range from 8am-dusk they will go in the coop the coop is clean, fresh water and food daily…. Hi Jennie, How long have they not been laying eggs for?
Have you changed their feed recently? Appear to be very healthy and not broody. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! We feed them layers mash every day and they always have water. We have a large garden and we let them wander every day so they feel free, can find their own food and so on.
One laid every day then stopped. It stopped laying while we were away for a week and the mother in law took over from us. The in laws keep their own completely free range hens next door to us including boys!
Sitting outside their basket for hours on end. Day after day. My wife let the girls out one day and left them all morning. Who knows what sweet nothings that Cockerel managed to share! They are constantly surrounded by daylight and we are moving into summer here now. Complete layer feeds are formulated to provide everything hens need in the correct amounts, but if we provide too many treats, then those nutrients become diluted.
Molt Around 18 months of age and annually after, chickens go through molt , which is defined as a period of feather loss and regrowth. Molt usually occurs in autumn and is associated with a decrease in egg production. Molting chickens redirect their energy from laying eggs to growing feathers. This results in a brief break from egg production. Molt typically lasts eight to 16 weeks, depending on the bird. Once she has a new set of feathers, egg production should return to normal.
Hen age Chickens begin laying eggs between weeks of age and can lay eggs as long as her productive lifetime allows. Just like people, as birds age they tend to slow down. After that, the number of eggs produced each year declines until she retires. A hen can continue to be a valued member of your flock after her peak production has passed.
Good article, suffering with temperatures constantly 45 degrees at present and egg production has dropped to nearly zero with all the chickens suffering. It is a battle to keep them cool. Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! Oh wow, that is some extreme temperatures! You can increase egg production during that time by adding a light in the coop and putting it on a timer. This will make sure that the chickens wake up and stay awake longer than they normally would in winter, and it will likely result in more eggs.
Chickens need about 20 grams of protein a day to lay eggs, so look for chicken feed with sufficient protein content. Hydration is also important, so make sure that your chickens have access to fresh water all day long. Sometimes egg production is working as it should, but the eggs can become stuck inside the chicken. This unfortunate situation is the result of egg-binding, which, according to Backyard Chicken Coops , is the result of a predisposed medical condition. Egg-bound hens may have a lump protruding from their abdomen where the egg got stuck and will need additional calcium and electrolytes to help push the egg all the way out.
Lubricant can help, but you may want an animal expert to take care of that.
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