Hen is Laying ‘Ghost Eggs’-Goes into nest box every day, no egg

[KerriChick]

My 1 year old Buckeye Brownie was until recently my most reliable layer. She did lay a couple fart/fairy eggs in the last couple months, and then about two weeks ago stopped laying entirely. She doesn’t appear to be molting and is acting completely normal otherwise. Every morning she goes into the nest box for about an hour and comes out-no egg. She is not showing any signs of being egg bound and is eating and drinking normally and hanging with her flock. Is she just taking a break? The other 3 chickens are laying eggs with nice thick shells almost every day-they have access to organic feed, oyster shell and grit all day and they free range in our suburban back yard. There are not really any places for her to hide eggs and we watch them all day so I know she’s not sneaking off. I did examine her just now, and all seems well back there as far as I can tell-her abdomen felt a bit full but not hard and she took a huge poop right after I put her down, so her poop is normal. Any ideas? I’m stumped.

 

[Cecisflock]

How old?

 

[rosemarythyme]

Could be some sort of hormonal fluctuation that's giving enough of a signal to tell her she should be laying, and yet not enough to actually get her to form and lay eggs. Very unscientific, I know but I've had birds that act as though they're laying when in reality they've stopped or mostly stopped.

 

[aart]

How old?

My 1 year old

 

[Cecisflock]

reading is hard!

 

[Sheepheart]

She might just be taking a break? My other guess is maybe she is laying her eggs elsewhere and they are somewhat hidden, but I feel like if that’s the case she might have gone broody by now and be sitting on them not an empty box?

 

[DougVC]

I have chickens do the same thing. We like to call it taking a vacation. With ours they would get back into the normal routine over the course of time. Something we noticed is we would see it more often when they would change diets. For example if they were getting too many treats they would take a vacation, but it does not sound like that is the case for you. If they are getting anything special (treats/table scraps) you could back off on anything not chicken food and grass and see what happens. We are just coming into spring so our chickens now have access to grass which has been under the snow for the last 4 months so we are anticipating some adjustment to the new diet as they start eating bugs and grass. Not sure that I answered anything about your specific case as I see you are in CA which depending on which part you may not have to worry about winter.

 

[pdw]

She might just be taking a break? My other guess is maybe she is laying her eggs elsewhere and they are somewhat hidden, but I feel like if that’s the case she might have gone broody by now and be sitting on them not an empty box?

I have a matriarch who went almost 8 mis without laying so I thought maybe because she was 3Yrs old she was done laying.Bit then after 8 mis she started laying again and still is at age almost 5yrs

 

[KerriChick]

Update: She laid for a couple weeks after laying a fart/fairy egg, now she's on hold again for the past several days. She needs a lot more protein than the other hens so my recent thinking is she just doesn't lay until her body decides she's getting enough of it-they have an 16% protein organic feed and free range in the yard for several hours a day(grass and bugs) Her eggs are also always shaped with a barely noticeable 'bump' on one end. She has just always been a little...off. But she is super sweet and we love her. So it goes.

 

[DougVC]

You could try transitioning them to an all flock and supplement with free choice oyster shell. That offers the higher protein content that may be causing the production reduction.