Why are my 9-month-old hens not laying?!

[chicken mama 0908]

I have 20 hens, 8 Buff Orpingtons, 5 Silver Laced Sussex, 2 Isa Browns, 4 Ameraucanas, and one mystery hen. They all are 9 months old. I have lights in the coop and a few months ago, one hen started laying. Then three days later we had a cold snap and she stopped laying. I have not got an egg from any of my hens since. I am feeding them Scratch and Peck layer feed which I ferment. I rotate through 3 containers and do a batch in each; they ferment 3 days before I feed them to the chickens. I thought they were not getting enough food (at the time I was feeding them 1/4 cup per bird a day) so, last month I upped their food a little. As they still didn't lay, I upped it even more a few days ago. Now I ferment 4 cups per batch which doubles to 8 cups (just under 1/2 cup per bird). Recently I started feeding half of it to them in the morning the rest in the evening. They always eat all available food at a feeding.

 

[NatJ]

I have 20 hens, 8 Buff Orpingtons, 5 Silver Laced Sussex, 2 Isa Browns, 4 Ameraucanas, and one mystery hen. They all are 9 months old. I have lights in the coop and a few months ago, one hen started laying. Then three days later we had a cold snap and she stopped laying. I have not got an egg from any of my hens since. I am feeding them Scratch and Peck layer feed which I ferment. I rotate through 3 containers and do a batch in each; they ferment 3 days before I feed them to the chickens. I thought they were not getting enough food (at the time I was feeding them 1/4 cup per bird a day) so, last month I upped their food a little. As they still didn't lay, I upped it even more a few days ago. Now I ferment 4 cups per batch which doubles to 8 cups (just under 1/2 cup per bird). Recently I started feeding half of it to them in the morning the rest in the evening. They always eat all available food at a feeding.

My guess: they are probably not getting enough food.

A common estimate is 1/4 pound of dry feed, per bird, per day for standard sized laying hens, in addition to as much water as they want to drink.

That would mean 20 hens eat a 40 pound bag of feed every 8 days. Or they eat a 50 pound bag every 10 days. What size bag do you usually buy, and how long does it last?

When people measure and weigh dry feed, they usually find that 1/4 pound of dry feed is between 1/2 cup and 1 cup, depending on the brand. That would mean 20 chickens need between 10 cups and 20 cups of dry feed per day, not the 4 cups of dry feed you are using. Your chickens are probably starving (literally), and that is why they are not laying.

Water is not a substitute for food. Measuring the amount of food after you add water, then comparing to someone else's dry measurement, is going to cause trouble (whether you are using cups or pounds, the problem is the same either way: water makes the food bigger and heavier, but does not add any more nutrition.)

 

[StinkyAcres]

I don't quite understand...why not free-feed at the same time so you don't have to worry about it? Pans can help catch feed so it doesn't go to waste. Chicken feeds have all the nutrients chickens need in the right amounts. Feeding too many scraps and treats can mess up that balance.

 

[RoyalChick]

Should my chickens be eating more in the morning or evening?

Mine eat off and on all day. They eat, then they rest, then they eat again. Roughly every 45 minutes is my observation.
I find free feeding pellets is the way to take away the stress from me of making sure they have enough available. On days when they free range, or when there are a lot of bugs they probably eat fewer pellets.
Mine also seem quite good at eating the pellets they spill off the floor (though mice do inevitably get some of them).

 

[NatJ]

adding some vitamins is something you could do to help with overall health as well.
View attachment 3788194

I would not waste the money, time, or effort to add anything special yet.
Just give a properly balanced chicken food, as much as they want to eat for several weeks, before doing anything more complicated.

Most times when people are underfeeding chickens, they are trying to save money. So spending the money on chicken feed, not supplements, makes sense for those cases. Based on some comments from the OP of this thread, I think that is the case here.

Other times when people are underfeeding chickens they think they are keeping them healthy (not letting them get fat), or they just don't know how much of what chickens need. In those cases, adding supplements is a distraction from the real issue (learning what amount of food is actually correct for chickens to stay healthy.)

If the chickens eat the correct amount of food each day, they should also get the correct amount of vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes, because those things are in the food too. (Everything I said here is assuming the person is able to buy a properly-balanced complete chicken feed. Some places in the world that is not possible, so my advice would be wrong for people living in those places.)

 

[Rose the Legbar]

My 5 hens (two are three years old and three are one year old and only 4 are laying) go through ~2-3 cups of food a day. They do knock a lot out but they eat that still. I would suggest putting out a feeder that they can free feed from 24/7. I also would not feed them layer feed yet as none are laying and that extra calcium isn’t good as they can’t get it out of their system easily.

 

[NatJ]

Will this solve my problem?

• up their feed to 1/2 cup per hen per day (in all 10 cups)
• switch back to grower feed and give them free access to oyster shells?

Also, we are going to extend the chicken yard to include an orchard this summer, but at the moment they don't free range.

It might solve the problem, but it might not be enough. If they have been underfed, they almost certainly need extra food to catch up to the body weight they should have.

Yes, upping the feed should help, and switching back to grower feed sounds like a good idea too. Yes, you are right that you should offer oyster shells free choice if they are on grower feed.

But I agree with the other people that suggest you offer them feed free-choice.

You certainly can continue to give them fermented feed at any rate you think it good, but if you ALSO provide free-choice pelleted feed, they can eat as much as they need. They will almost certainly prefer the fermented feed, so they will only eat the pellets if they actually need more to eat. Each chicken knows her own needs better than you do. Most chicken foods are designed to provide the right amount of nutrition if the chicken is allowed to eat as much as it wants. Chickens usually do very well on a free-choice feeding plan.

I suggest pellets rather than a mixed-grain feed to offer free-choice and dry, because that keeps them from picking out their favorite parts and wasting the rest. (For fermented feed, all the parts get wet and stick together, which also prevents the chickens picking through and wasting it, so there is no real benefit to pellets for the feed you are going to get it wet and ferment.)

 

[StinkyAcres]

Where is their crop?

It's at the base of the neck in the chest area. It's good to monitor their crops regularly to make sure they are filling during the day and emptying overnight.

 

[NatJ]

Should my chickens be eating more in the morning or evening?

If you feed them only twice a day, twelve hours apart, probably equal amounts each time.

But if you let them eat free choice, they will probably eat about 1/3 of the food when they wake up hungry in the morning, another third spaced out during the day as a bunch of small snacks, and the last third before bed so they have plenty to digest while they sleep (very rough estimates, but hopefully enough to give an idea of the basic pattern.)

 

[Rose the Legbar]

Don't they need a lot of calcium to lay?

They only need the calcium for the egg shells once they are starting to lay. A high amount of protein is actually what is needed to make the eggs. If you want you can get a 20% protein all flock feed and have a container of oyster shells where the pullets can regulate their own calcium intake. Too much calcium built up in their systems can cause issues too.