[AndyRVTR]

Hi everyone, I'm looking for a little advice if anyone can help... Earlier in the year I bought 8 POL chooks and they have been happily laying for the past few month's without a problem, averaging 7-11 eggs a day. I was so happy with the chooks and love looking after them, I bought another 6 POL about 6 weeks ago, at first there was the usual pecking order stuff going on and the eggs dropped off to about 5-7 a day, but after about 10 days all the chooks were getting along fine and laying returned to normal, 7-11 a day.
However, in the past two weeks the eggs have slowly dropped to arround 4-6 a day, and this week so far, I've had 4 on Monday, 3 yesterday and 3 again today
So now I'm getting concerned that something isn't right I thought at first it might be the strange weather we've been having, but the guy next door says his hens are laying as normal?
They are fed once in the morning, and again a much smaller amount in the evening, and apart from getting the odd bit of green's nothing changes. They have fresh water everyday and their bedding is changed every weekend.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

[Roughlee Handled]

.............They are fed once in the morning, and again a much smaller amount in the evening, ............

I would suggest you leave feed out for them all day.  Chickens are not like dogs or cats, with one feed a day.

[Roughlee Handled]

Put the feed out in something like this.


What hard feed are you feeding them?

What breed are they?

[AndyRVTR]

What hard feed are you feeding them?

What breed are they?

They are Rhode Island Red's and I feed them Farmgate Layers Pellets, they sometimes get a small amount of mixed poultry corn too...

[Roughlee Handled]

OK you basic problem is they may not be getting enough food.  Give them access to feed at all times apart from night.

[woodside farm]

Hi,
I agree leave feed out all day, I have various breeds of chickens and the heat is affecting certain ones and not the others, so that could be the problem, my RIR's have not started laying yet, so I can't say about that breed.

Michelle

[Hensington]

I would check the coop for mite and also watch out for egg eaters.

[AndyRVTR]

I would check the coop for mite and also watch out for egg eaters.

Checked for both and no sign of either... 5 eggs today and I doubled their feeds... I'm not too keen on the idea of leaving feed out all day because of the danger of attracting rats etc 

[mountainvicar]

Rats can be controled by other meens... chickens simple arn't made to get buy on just one big feeding. The are natural foriges and so need to be able to feed through out the day.

[nzdunn]

i leave there food out all day and when they have gone into roost i bring the food in and sweep up every little bit, i reckon good husbandry will go towards keeping rats away.  nicky

[Foxy]

Our egg production has dropped off too, but I am not bothered, wouldn't fancy sitting for an hour in a nestbox in this heat!

[Hensington]

Foxy is right, the heat usually slows things right down. Does here.
You really must leave food and water out for your birds all day, Hens especially commercial types need to eat all day long. Hens an actually takes stores of calcium from there own body to make up shortfalls of food, so they may of been getting along by sacrificing body stores to lay daily.

Feed them up:)

[richyrich7]

I must agree with the above comments an average hen will eat about 125g a day of food but they won't eat it at one go, you could measure out 125 x 14 = 1.75 kg a day add a 10% ish for those that eat a little more so call it 2kg. That way you should not have too much wastage 
Mine have dropped off lay a little with the heat that takes it out of them too.

Make sure they have plenty of water and plenty of room to drink so queing up does not become a problem.

[AndyRVTR]

Thanks for all the replies everyone... I've just got back from locking the girls up and there were 3 eggs today  however, there was one in one of the nest boxes that had been eaten , but some of the shell was still in the box. My question now has to be, could it be rat's getting in and eating the eggs, but  surely they wouldnt eat 6,7 or 8 of the eggs everyday would they?
There is only one place where rats could possibly get into the run,  I found a small hole under the shed where some wire mesh has been moved but i have now put this right, so I wlll wait and see what happens tomorrow. One other question is, if the hens have been laying previous to this problem on the same diet (amounts of food), why all of a sudden would they stop laying?

[Roughlee Handled]

why all of a sudden would they stop laying?

if feed is the issue its because they have run out of steam/energy

You could have a magpie/crow problem. Broken eggs / shell.  Have you a roof on your run?

I lost my eggs for two weeks from one coop due to magpies.