please advise me-fairly new to chicken keeping

I

impeydoll

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Hi everyone, firstly thankyou for letting me join your site.
right ill start from the beginning so you will all know exactly whats been going on.

back in april i got three hens at 11 weeks of age from the same poultry breeder, 1 leghorn, 1 welsummer, and 1 light sussex, they have their coop and run underneath and a extended part with a mud run in it and they also have a large area to scratch about in all day,where there are worms, slugs and snails, and bugs aplenty, they get let out as soon as its sunrise and they stay out until they decide its bedtime. they have a inner door which locks them in at night and also an outer door which is also locked at night, and its built on a concrete base so nothing can get in or under.

welsummer is patricia, leghorn is beryl, light sussex is maureen, and buff sussex is blanch, silver sussex is doris. (all named after my mums sisters lol)

at approximately 20-22 weeks of age they all started to lay, the welsummer laid on and off every two to three days, light sussex was the same and the leghorn every 1-2 days, then the leghorn stopped laying, her comb was pale although she was eating and drinking she became very thin,she laid what i call an "alien" it was a long membrane looking thing with a soft shell egg at one end and a small what looked a bit like the next egg at the other, she wasnt very active and after a while she died, vet says she had peritonitis from a broken egg inside her. ok dealt with that, after that, had a odd egg now and then from the welsummer and the light sussex, the welsummer laid an small egg which looked more like a marble, but then they stopped laying, after a week or so, went back to the same poultry breeder he said he cant understand why im not getting an egg a day out of my other two, he said maybe theyre "late starters" although id had a few eggs from them.

we bought two more hens from him, a silver sussex and a buff sussex, so now i have four, these two were at POL the buff laid as soon as we got her home, and has been laying an egg almost daily or occasionally misses a day since, the silver sussex laid for about a week, now she has stopped too, so ive got four hens, all healthy looking, nice red combs, very active, eating and drinking well, and are nice a heavy and not thin and only 1 laying.

they are fed, layers pellets occasional dried worms and occasional mixed corn, they have grit available all the time and constant supply of water, i have two seperate bowls of water up each end of the run so theres always plenty to go round.

ive been told by several other people so many different things, may be broody, maybe moulting, maybe missing other hen, da de dah de dah,

what i need is someone to tell me what im doing wrong! or give me some advice as to how i can get them to lay again??? PLEASE!!!
 
Hi Impydoll, and a big welcome to the Forum. Sorry to hear about the problems with your chickens. One or two things come to mind, and I'm sure some more experienced people on here will be able to add their ideas as well. You are evidently a caring and responsible keeper and have provided suitable food, clean water, good housing and space, so no need to beat yourself up about what you might be doing 'wrong', I'm sure they're very lucky girls.
First, when was the last time you wormed them with Flubenvet? When chickens underperform, one always wonders about a worm burden, which can really pull them down even if they appear outwardly fairly normal. Have you found the main Poultrykeeper website yet? (See link at the bottom of the page, also this http://poultrykeeper.com/general-chickens/worming-chickens about why and how to worm your birds. )Of course you may know all this, and be doing it already every 4-6 months.
A possibility with the Leghorn was that she had passed a lash, ie part of her egglaying equipment had come loose when she was trying to lay. See this thread for more links about this condition http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5954&p=33873&hilit=lash#p33873 It's not uncommon.but also not as bad as it sounds, so in a young bird like your Leghorn pullet something else was probably going on I should think. As the vet said, peritonitis may have been the cause of her death, but she may have been developing this for quite some time. Sadly, that sort of thing does sometimes happen, and if it had just been that bird whose laying was abnormal, one would think it was just an isolated case, bad luck really.
I notice that all your birds are purebreds, and from what are normally good egglaying breeds. However, though many purebred pullets lay very well, especially in their first season, many are bred more for looks than for egglaying performance, and if the ones your breeder is supplying didn't come from strains selected for laying it's possible that this may be making them less able to come up with the goods as expected.
Were Patricia, Beryl and Maureen bred by the person you bought them from, and if so, were they hatched and kept together as chicks? As you bought them as young growers at 11 weeks old, another possibility is that they shared a virus or some sort of infection as chicks, maybe in the brooder or even in the incubator, from which they have apparently recovered, but which has affected their normal growth and productivity in later life. Did you get Blanche and Doris as POL pullets later in the year, and if so, do you know if they were from a different batch? How long have you had these two, and how old were they when they arrived? ? I ask because often the shock of moving home and being integrated into a strange flock can affect laying in a more mature bird, whcih might account for Doris not laying at present. Also of course, the days are getting shorter, and most hens do slow down or even stop in the Autumn/Winter, so this may be a factor.
As for what you've been told by friends, if they were moulting you'd know about it, and this would be very unlikely in their first year as they will have recently grown a new set of feathers at around 14 weeks old. Old hens who lose a lifetime partner do sometimes appear to miss her, but this is more because of the disturbance in the pecking order I expect, and it isn't likely that they are still mourning the sad loss of Beryl. Being purebreds they are likely to go broody at some point, but less so in their first year and if and when this happens you will easily be able to diagnose it because they will want to spend all day in nestboxes and refuse to come out.
I shall watch this thread with interest, to see what other people can come up with. However, if I were you, next time I needed more pullets I'd get them from somewhere else!
 
the guy i got them all from is a genuine poultry breeder, he has been breeding poultry all his life, he overtook from his father who also bred poultry, he has a massive piece of land and has all the birds in their own coops,he also has geese, cockerels, ducks, so each batch that hatch stay together until they are sold on etc, they are also allowed to freely roam his fields etc so they get exercise, the first three and the second two would have come from different batches, i got the first three at 11 weeks old last day of march, ive had the new ones about 4-6 weeks at POL, i have asked my friend who lives round the corner who has birds herself and she has been round to look at them and feel their bodies etc and she says they look really healthy and cant understand it either. i really dont know what to do for the best, i look after them the best i can i make sure they have food and water, i keep them clean and i watch them most of the time as i can see them from my kitchen window, i used to give them, the scraps from making salads and vegetables so they had lettuce, greens, tomatoes, cucumber, but he told me not to give them anything other than their pellets as they will prefer other stuff and wont eat the pellets, so i stopped giving them anything else, so since ive had the new birds theyve just had pellets and corn and occasional worms, they have been wormed my friend gave me some of her flubenvet i wormed them all when i got the new ones.

i would love it so much if i went out there one day and there was 4 eggs!!!!
 
To pick up on a point - your supplier may well be a long term breeder with good premises but if he is not actively breeding hens for maximum production, egg laying can be disappointing. Show birds are seldom good layers either so if he is a show man don't expect too much.
Your birds have access to a lot of space, I'd look for eggs laid in a stolen nest which can be in any nook or cranny. If they were egg eating, you'd have noticed some signs, wet nests & broken shells.
If broody, they'd be sitting in the nest boxes, if moulting there'd be feathers everywhere (they are too young anyway) and grief it won't be.
The scraps you fed won't make much difference either way as long as it wasn't too much - all good healthy stuff by the sound of it.
You could try something I give when I move their pens or mix them up when they go into breeding pens - something called Poultry Drink a pink liquid that goes in the water. I used it on two batches of POL pullets recently who were not performing as they should and it does seem to have improved them. I rarely give any form of additives but this one I've used for a long time and it's not expensive. I'll read the label tomorrow !
Unfortunately there are infections that they can pick up at all stages of their life which do affect egg production in the long term but they are not mild infections and if they'd had them, I'm sure you would have noticed them.
 
I found a link to Battles Poultry Drink here http://www.chicken-house.co.uk/acatalog/Battles_Poultry_Drink_500ml.html and read the reviews from lots of people who swear by it. If Chuck also recommends it, I shall get some for my birds!
 
thankyou all for your input, i will definately buy some poultry drink as soon as possible, do you give it once per day or put some in each time you refill their dish? how quick do you notice any change? i so want my hens to be healthy and lay lots of eggs im willing to try anything as im out of ideas as to what to do. thanks again ill let you know how i (or they) get on. cheers.
 
I see you can add it to their food, and this is what I usually do with vitamin supplements, less waste that way because in the water much gets lost when you change it. According to the instructions, I would add it to the water I used when making them a nice warm mash in the evening, with pellets soaked in water until crumbly, plus maybe a few hulled sunflower seeds or dried mealworms if you're feeling particularly indulgent. Then they get a nice full crop to last them through the increasingly long dark cold nights as winter comes on, and you can see it going down! Be careful not to overdose them though.
 
That's the stuff, thanks Marigold. My bottle is a different shape but has the picture of a dove and a game bird on it. I put it in the water as per instructions. I noticed the difference within a week. I don't give it for long, three days at most for a boost and just once on the day that I move them.
 
i think ill add it to their water for now, then when it starts to gt dark really early in the day around 4pm then ill make them up a warm mash in the evenings and use it with that water, so it will be like a having a lovely bowl of warm porridge before bed for them and has the added tonic included, ill let you know how it goes. thanks guys.
 
I don't give this additive all the time, just two days if I change pens, three or four days if they are not laying well.
 
started giving them the poultry drink yesterday, it made me laugh as they were so curious, they kept cocking their heads to the side and looking at it as if to say "whats this then, this is different to what we normally have" then they tasted it, and they was really enjoying it, i call it the hens redbull! noticed some feathers loose in the coop yesterday,look like theyre from the welsummer, she has a spikey bit on the back of her head/neck area, is this normal? still only getting eggs from the buff sussex at the mo, will wait in anticipation and see if the drink makes any difference to the laying in the next few weeks.
 
Your Welsummer is moulting and the spikes on the neck are the new feathers coming through so that explains why she isn't laying at least but isn't she young - around point of lay ?
 
If your Welsummer is starting to moult be prepared for a shock - mine looks like a proper welfare case when she's moulting; it's amazing what a scrawny scruffy state they can become! Although she didn't get that bad until she was over a year old. She's moulting now and looks half her normal size.
P1020157.jpg
 
Mine are moulting too - one of them has a huge bald patch just below her neck. Is it just an old wive's tale that the better layers have a more rapid, or dramatic, moult?
 
the welsummer and the light sussex were 11 weeks old when i got them end of march,so theyre approximately 27-28 weeks of age now. is it not normal for them to moult at that age then? havnt noticed the light sussex shedding any featehrs although her tail feather look a bit "chewed" and look very untidy.
 
Yuo wouldn't normally expect them to moult this year at all, not until next Autumn, though sometimes a bird can start a neck moult if a bit under the weather, or suffering from some kind of stress. Evidently yours is growing feathers back again, so it's odd but not a cause for worry. The spiky new ones you can see must be coming from feather shafts that were emptied when their feathers fell out a few days ago, so were there some feathers around in the run a week ago?
 
yes i did notice there was some brown ones in the coop, wasnt sure who's they was till i saw the bald bit on pat, they seem to really like being out in the rain too, took my dogs out for a walk when i came back they were all soaking wet and just standing in it, even though the run and coop doors are open for them. weird hens!
 
just to update, welsummer is definately in a moult, she looks like a poor soul with bits sticking up and out and feathers half hanging off, bald patches on her neck and head, she really does look like shes been neglected lol no change in the egg laying area as yet, still getting only one egg from the buff sussex, nothing from the other three, ho hum will be patient and see what happens.
 
ok, no change in the egg laying dept at all, now i have another problem, MY only layer the buff sussex has now developed a limp, cant put any weight on her right leg, my friend came round and examined her very closely, she is nice and heavy, not thin at all, eating and drinking but cannot walk without limping quite badly, we have examined her foot, toes, pads, leg and hip, she doesnt flinch if you pull or push on her leg, but she now has stopped laying too! i feel so deflated. any ideas?
 
Hi impeydoll,

Sorry you haven't had a reply yet, hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me will be online later today to help you, as I'm kind of a newbie myself. But in the meantime I'd say re the leg, the best thing may be to let a vet take a look - if you can find a vet who knows a bit about chickens that is. Though I had a cockerel who was attacked by a fox and he couldn't walk on one leg for several days. There was no visible injury and he allowed me to manipulate the leg without complaining so I don't know what he'd done exactly. I was planning on taking him to the vet but it seemed to fix itself and he got back to normal after a week or so. (The vet can be so stressful for small animals I personally try to avoid it unless absolutely necessary). Your girl may have gone off laying because of the leg, but it may just be the time of year to stop laying anyway. Perhaps she's about to start moulting herself, or it's just too darn cold to lay! Many hens will stop laying over winter, perhaps someone else can be more specific about this.

Anyway, please don't be disheartened - chickens can be maddening with their spontaneous random ailments! Fingers crossed she's better soon.
 
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