What the heck is going on with my australorps?

[springvalley123]

They may have been fine initially, getting enough sustenance from 40 acres, but 40 birds would need a lot more than that to find enough meaningful food. Getting into the corn is just a candy binge. Their 40 acres has been depleted by having too many birds on it. I think @Shadrach and @U_Stormcrow have the science or the knowledge on what it takes to sustain that many birds, I think it's a lot of land, deliberately planted with the right stuff.

 

[Mrs. K]

I think it is just molt. They are prime for a hard molt this time of year. I would expect your birds to pick up fairly soon after the solstice. However, they won't ever be as productive as the first year. The eggs might be bigger. Each year after the molt, they will take a bit longer to come back into lay, and will lay less.

Hidden nest could be a problem, but I tend to have that more often in the late spring, early summer.

Mrs K

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Byc friends do not let friends text and drive. So don't be like stormcrow. On this question, I am going to defer largely to Shadrach, as I use my property to support a commercial feed regimen, rather than relying almost entirely on what they can obtain from my property. At first glance, the numbers do not seem excessive for the acreage, assuming the acreage is of at least moderate quality they are using substantially all of it. If they are keeping very very close to the coop, perhaps for reason of predation, then it's possible they have greatly depleted the nutritional value of that space. But even when I had a hundred Birds, and they mostly contained themselves to the five enclosed Acres, I wasn't seeing issues. However 85% of their feet came from a bag.

 

[saysfaa]

40 is our immediate homestead. They rarely venture off the 5 acres in our front yard. ...

Single stationary building....

3 water sources, one for them, and a large Waterer each for our sheep and pigs. ... spring... river...

No, just regular salt blocks. We do give them some mixed into their baked and crushed eggshells.
...

I think your stocking rate is too high to expect them to get all their feed except eggshells from foraging.

Fifty chickens on 40 acres is less than one chicken per acre - much, much, much less than stocking rates I see recommended. But they really can't go a quarter of a mile out from their coop to forage. They can go even less far from water.

Ranging over about five acres or less is what I usually see when people say how far their flock ranges when the flock has the choice.

Fifty chickens on five acres is also less than I see recommended but those recommendations are on managed pasture, with rotation via fencing or moving coops (usually both). And at least nearly all of them still provide a significant amount of chicken feed. Those that don't provide such feed have breeds that don't produce much even when they have access to an ideal diet.

It is possible to tell a lot about the fertility of the soil by what plants grow there. Oak forests tend to be on drier and less fertile soil than many other types of habitat. Probably, not all of your space is oak forest. What isn't (like river bottoms) might be more fertile or might be cleared oak forest that isn't.

It takes a lot of mice to feed 50 chickens for even one day, much less months and years. I get that they are also eating other things, including some of the corn fed to the pigs and sheep.

Molting in the spring is not normal; it can indicate a nutrient problem. Although illness, shortage of water, and high stress levels are also causes of molting out of season, nutrition seems a likely possibility. Especially with the egg production problem.

It may not be calories (especially with access to the grain). I don't know which nutrients are most likely to be the problem where you are. I'm still in the process of figuring them out for my area. I would start with the extension office for information on your soils and for information on the differences between pig feed, sheep feed, and chicken feed (assuming you buy pig feed and sheep feed; if they get straight corn then nevermind those feeds). Well, I would if I were trying to continue not buying any chicken feed.

 

[Mrs. K]

I have been in agriculture for a long time, and graze animals (cattle and horses) for a living for decades. Some years are good years, and some years you need added feed.

I have a ranch, and technically when released from the coop/run, they could range for 100's of acres...but they don't. They tend to stay rather close to the set up. If I let them out everyday they do go out a bit farther - but they have never gotten more than 300 feet from the set up.

If they are not doing well, you have to do something different. Add feed, see what happens.

Mrs K

 

[Yallqueda]

Well we’ve introduced feed, both scratch and layer feed…they aren’t really interested in it.
I built a feeder for them and laid out a few pounds of feed after I got home from work one day and they kinda pecked around at it but basically left it alone.

Next morning a few birds pecked at it, but again largely ignored. Most just walked past the feeder off toward their favored foraging areas.

We’re going to keep
The feeder there, especially going into winter, but they seem pretty well fed.

 

[saysfaa]

It may take them awhile to get used to the changes.

 

[Yallqueda]

An update for posterity-
As winter has set in we continued to give feed to the chickens (as their normal prey were all holed up for winter) starting on the 9th of November. No change.

However, Mrs K. Seems to have nailed it-on December 25th (Glory to God for all things!) we found one single egg, and they are up to almost a dozen a day now.
They all seem happy, healthy, and are getting back into the swing of laying.
Thanks much to all here for your help.