why haven't my hens started laying yet? are yours laying?

[mabel1973]

everyone i know who keeps hens - which admittedly isn't many people..have said their hens have started laying again and have done for several week, we have not had even one solitary egg since november.
they seem happy enough, and now we've had longer days and a bit of sunshine i expect them to pull their finger out..so to speak!

don't worry too much as some lay at different times. We had stacks of eggs for Christmas and not many now. We had so many before christmas 1 hen managed to sit on some to hatch.

They'll lay once the weather is nicer and probably more then to.

i have got 2 pekin x silky and one ex battery hen, don't know what she is, just quite large and rusty coloured.
when we got the pekin x's we were told they would lay all through the winter! they haven't!

I thought that Pekins stopped laying in winter???

One of my brahmas has started laying, both minorcas are laying, but sporadically.

I don't think it's quite warm enough yet for them to be laying consistently.

Don't worry just yet

sorry, should have mentioned that I have five - so two aren't laying.

Although one is probably a cockerel, and if so, I suspect won't lay

But deffo one is a girl and is deffo NOT laying at all yet.

pippo - maybe it is the fact that they are crossed with silkies that they should keep laying? i don't know!
still no eggs here....i do resent having to PAY for them!

would you believe it - i ahve just been out and one of the pekins has laid a little egg! Obviously the sage and onion stuffing threat work

Hooray for eggs! I didn't get a single egg from any of mine between early November and early February, they're only now coming back into the swing of things. They're obviously panicking since they saw the cockerels disappearing one by one!

I'm getting 3 eggs a day from 3 chickens - today we got 4 which was a nice surprise!

Have you wormed them recently? If not then do it as having worms will lower egg production.

no i haven't wormed actually.....we did get another egg though today!

I'd worm them and then you'd probably get even more eggs.

My hybrids had been laying through the winter but my purebreds hadn't started again (this was beginning of Feb). So I wormed them and they started laying the next week. May have been a coincidence but I think if you don't worm them twice a year then they probably will have worms.

Makes me feel ill to think of eating eggs that have come from a wormy chicken even though I'm sure there's no health risk.

I wormed by hens just before Christmas and they still didn't lay until last month! Lazy good-for-nothing mares that they are.

What do you guys use for worming? I use verm-x

Flubenvet.

Hi
Am new to chicken keeping and just found the pages for chicken keeping on here, you guys are brill!! Answering loads of my queries better than the chicken websites!!!

I have 5 pekins only got them on Saturday thought they had all been wormed but am wondering now.....one of them has REALLY bad dihorea and am wondering if it could be worms..? One is laying but the other 4 aren't however the other 4 don't have large combs and I have read that when they start laying their combs grow. Is this true?

Thanks hope you can help
Alison

How old are they mabel? Their laying season gets shorter and more erratic the older they get.
My girls are 6+ and have been laying for about a month now but it won't last long. past 2 is considered old.

Hi Mommachick
If you have a new bird with diarrohea I'd take it back to be honest. Is it ok in other ways? Also are you sure it's diarrohea? It's just they have different poo quite frequently.
The combs grow with age but they are bright red when they are laying, a dull red when not.
It's not surprising they're not laying atm, it'll take them a week or 2 to settle in and then hopefully they'll start. Over the years though, I've discovered, that you just can't tell with hens. When you want eggs, nada,....
HTH's