[Jomtie]

I have a real mixed bag of issues. My 4 hens were bought less than 6 months ago at POL. They all started laying and for several months we had 4 eggs most days. Then in June one was ill and stopped laying. We took her to the vet and she had a course of Baytril. She hasn't layed since, although she is happy and healthy. Then another started laying very rough, knobbly eggs. The shells have become thinner and thinner, despite free access to oyster shell/grit, daily yoghurt with crushed, baked egg shell in it and more recently the addition of Shell-Max in the water. If we don't get to the nest box immediately after she's layed, one of the others goes in and the egg gets broken and trampled. Now one of the most reliable layers has started taking alternate days off, so we've gone from 4 eggs a day to 1-2 a day. Only 1 out of the 4 is laying consistently. Any advice would be much appreciated.

[joyfull]

make sure you cut out all treats and feed them a good quality layers pellets. If after a couple of weeks things haven't improved you could try adding poultry spice to their layers pellets as this has a high calcium ingredient. Then if that fails you could try giving them a pinch of limestone flour on a moist treat such as sweetcorn or half a grape. Do this for a couple of weeks - but no longer - too much calcium can be bad for them.

Are you sure they were point of lay and not older?

[Jomtie]

I'm pretty sure they were POL joyfull. They took between 2 and 4 weeks to start to lay and went through all the developmental milestones (i.e reddening of comb/wattles, squatting when you put your hand out) during those few weeks. They have grown a lot since.
They have Heygates Layers pellets, which is what was recommended by the breeder, so I asssume it's good quality. I'll try adding poultry spice and see how that goes. They don't have much in the way of treats other than one or two dried mealworms each if I need to get them into the run quickly if I'm going out. I don't give them extra greens as they have access to grass during the day. They also have two spoons of plain live yoghurt every evening with ground eggshell mixed in and a couple of handfuls of corn between tham about an hour before bed.