Why are my hens not laying any eggs? We buy them pellets and wheat. They are free range.?

Question

We don"t have many spiders as the hens are around looking for them most of the day, and they pick on kitchen and vegie scraps...but no eggs.

Answer 1

Chickens start laying at 6 months of age, give or take. You should be feeding them a high protein mix, ask your local pet store or vet for this. Also give them a warm secure nest box to sleep in at night, and also access to food and water at night, make sure there is plenty of shavings and straw.

Answer 2

They may be too young.  Give them some time!  :)  Also, make sure you offer them oyster shell supplements or another source of calcium so they can make nice hard shells.  They won't lay if they are calcium deficient.

Answer 3

they need laying pellets and/or some grain if you can,t buy grain your grocery store will have something for your girls  

Answer 4

They might be too young still to be sexually mature.

Or sometimes.. they need to feel safe and have a nest where they can hide. Maybe try putting an upside down cardboard box with a hole in it so they can go in and hide with some straw or something in it. They need to feel safe and hidden to lay eggs.

Or sometimes.. having a male around (castrated if you don't want to have bloody eggs, not castrated if you want chicks obviously..) will induce the hens to lay?

Don't know. Not really a farmer but that's the best I can tell you.

Best of luck.

Answer 5

If you brought your hens as Point Of Lay pullets then there is no reason why none of them would have started laying. We brought some years ago- I think POLs are about 9-12 weeks old- they dont have to be very old before they start to lay eggs.

Have you got some nice nesting boxes set up filled with hay or straw for them to nest in?

Have you looked at all the places the hens are getting to to make sure that they are not laying eggs in some secret hideaway- our chooks used to do that all the time- then by the time you would find them half the eggs are rotten!

It sounds like they might be old enough to lay, but they are nesting somewhere where you cant find them.

Answer 6

A castrated rooster???  Sorry, I've never heard of neutering a rooster.  If you don't want chicks or crowing, you simply don't own a male!

Birds that aren't laying may be immature pullets yet.  If they are under 6 months, they might not be fully developed yet.  They might also be too old to lay - a hen's production starts declining after age 3 and may stop altogether by age 6.  

If they are still of prime laying age, you have several different things that might be going on.

This is molting season.  Many hens stop laying when molting or broody.  The other possibility is that your hens have decided that the nest boxes aren't suitable for laying and are hiding their eggs elsewhere.  Start checking your flowerbeds - I had a young pullet who started laying and collected about 30 eggs in a flowerbed before I caught her trying to brood them!  I had thought she was just a late bloomer.  Look around - you may have eggs hiding somewhere.

You might try penning a couple of the birds for a day or two at a time and see if anyone is producing.  Cage them if you have to and see what turns up.  There's a possibility you might have an egg-eater in your flock as well.  If a bird is allowed to eat a broken egg, they soon learn to peck and eat every egg they can find.  Birds that do this have to be removed from a laying flock.

Make sure your hens are getting grit for digestion and crushed oyster shell for calcium.  A hen that's not getting enough calcium lays soft eggs or sometimes becomes eggbound, which can be fatal, and may also account for a lack of production.