Do you know chickens? I have questions.

[lordbear]

I have recently moved from the SF suburbs to a small farm to live with friends. They have been here only a year, having moved from the 'city' too. We know little about raising livestock, but we have 2 cows, 2 sheep and over 30 chickens. And questions. :)

The prime concern right now has to do with why we stopped getting eggs. Rather than bore everyone with details here, I'll ask for some kind farmer to share his or her knowledge and experience by contacting me.

(I'm a first time WaccoBB user and I am assuming that there is a way to send a personal message. If not, I'll repost/update with a way to reach me. :))

Thanks!
Don Bear

[klchadwell]

Hi. I read our ad. I have a few chickens too. Our chicken stopped laying eggs cause she was not comfortable with where she was living, she was under stress, to many things going on, on the property. We set up a place for her to sleep, then started laying eggs again. She finally had 2 hatch, and has 2 babies running around. Any other questions? O, we also got egg hatching feeder for her.

[Geni Houston]

As the last poster mentioned, many things can cause them to stop. We have about 100 and varying times get 4 dozen to 2 dozen a day. Things that seemed to stop ours:

Threatening preditors - when we had a fox problem and a red shoulder hawk problem, they slowed down.

Extreme changes in temperature - very cool week, then very hot week.

Winter, obviously - but we use lamps in the various coups and they lay pretty well all year long.

Mean rooster - that can really put you off!
Good luck!
Geni