Top rated five Reasons Your Hens Stop Laying – Defined by Gail Damerow
Top rated five Reasons Your Hens Stop Laying – Defined by Gail Damerow
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Each and every yard chicken keeper has seasoned it: someday, your hens are laying reliably, and another, the nesting packing containers are mysteriously vacant. According to Gail Damerow, renowned poultry specialist and author of Storey’s Guidebook to Elevating Chickens, this egg-laying pause is often not a mystery at all. You will find obvious, organic causes hens cease laying, and knowing them will help you assistance your flock and restore efficiency. Here are Damerow’s major 5 causes hens quit laying—and what you are able to do about them.
1. Molting: A All-natural Pause
As Damerow clarifies, molting is often a yearly event inside of a hen’s lifetime, normally occurring in late summer months to early fall. For the duration of this time, hens drop and regrow feathers—a process that needs a tremendous number of Vitality and protein. Egg production typically stops throughout this era, as the hen's human body focuses entirely on feather regeneration.
What You Can Do: Aid your hens by using a substantial-protein feed or snacks like mealworms and scrambled eggs. Keep away from stressing the flock and Enable nature take its course. Once the molt is comprehensive, egg-laying should really progressively resume.
2. Shortened Daylight Hours
Light-weight publicity plays a significant position in stimulating a hen’s reproductive procedure. Damerow points out that hens require 14–16 hrs of daylight for consistent laying. As daylight decreases in the autumn and Wintertime months, so does egg production.
What You Can Do: Take into account incorporating a light supply from the coop which has a timer to simulate natural daylight. A reduced-wattage bulb turning on inside the early morning can securely lengthen "daylight" and help Winter season laying. Keep away from unexpected lighting adjustments that might anxiety your birds.
3. Bad Nutrition
Nourishment is foundational to egg output. Damerow warns that feeding chickens a food plan missing in protein, calcium, or necessary nutritional vitamins may end up in fewer or no eggs. Treats and scratch grains, whilst enjoyable, can dilute the well balanced diet supplied by commercial layer feed.
What You are able to do: Assure your flock has frequent use of higher-high quality layer feed, clean Fun88 Casino up drinking water, and calcium dietary supplements like crushed oyster shell. Restrict treats to not more than 10% in their everyday diet plan.
four. Worry and Environmental Components
Pressure is a major contributor to diminished egg creation. Based on Damerow, stressors can consist of predator threats, overcrowding, bullying, Extraordinary temperatures, or maybe shifting the coop. Hens are delicate to change and might respond by halting egg creation.
What You are able to do: Produce a tranquil, Protected ecosystem on your birds. Maintain regular routines, provide ample Place, and address sources of strain like loud noises or aggressive flockmates.
five. Age and Health concerns
Damerow reminds us that laying isn't really a lifelong endeavor. Most hens start out laying about 5–six months of age, peak at about one–two years, then step by step slow down. Sickness, parasites, and reproductive troubles may interfere with laying.
What You are able to do: Keep an eye on your hens’ All round overall health. Perform frequent parasite checks, maintain a thoroughly clean coop, and check with a vet when you see signs of health issues. Older hens should be valuable members from the flock even when their laying days are behind them.
Final Thoughts
As Gail Damerow often suggests, “Chickens don’t just prevent laying for no rationale.” If your hens have a split, it’s their means of signaling that anything within their surroundings or biology has shifted. With a little bit of observation, great treatment, plus some endurance, you can assist guidebook your flock back to balanced egg generation—or simply value the natural rhythms in their lives.