snowfearn

Hello and good morning, I was wondering if you lovely people could help me with something? I have 4 hybrid chickens I have had them for about a month now and they are doing really well. The problem I have is that one of the chickens has possibly stopped laying, I say possibly as to be honest I can not be sure. I was getting 4 eggs a day from day 1 then about a week ago I started getting 3 and then we got 3 and a very soft one and now only 3 a day again for the past few days. I have no idea if one of the chickens has stopped laying or if its a different one not laying each day?. The chickens were kept on a grass area with the coop and run it was a large area but turned into chicken poo mush after a couple of weeks so last week (a couple of days after I noticed a change in the egg laying) I moved them too a half paved and half grass are that I can clean much easier. Could this have stressed them? They all seem fine clucking about etc and do not seem poorly. I just want to make sure I am doing everything right and not missing something or is this perfectly normal. Oh and I should mention the chickens are about 22 weeks old now, I feed them layers pellets and have grit/oyster shell available at all times. Thank you so much for reading and sorry for the ramble. Marie x x

Hello and thank you so much for the replies, I have noticed a few holes in my omlet fence the past couple of days and I thought the chickens were breaking it somehow but then realised that was probably not the case and that foxes have been about!!. I am already very attached to my girls so would be mortified if anything happened to them so will have to not let them out so much . I will invest in some more secure fencing i think, do you know of any thats easy to put up? Thank you also for letting me know about the cleaner for the run I dont have much grass left its kind of turned onto dead grasss mush, I dont know how such small creatures can make so much mess. Thanks again, Marie

Hello, My name is Marie and I am very new to this so please forgive my 20 questions. I have 4 hybrid chickens purchased 2 weeks ago, they are all lovely and im getting 4 eggs a day since day 1 so think they are quite happy or at least I hope so . I just have a few questions re cleaning etc of the coop and run. I have a wooden coop with a small run attached that has wood chip on top of grass in the run area,they are kept inside this only on occasion when no one is home. I have purchased a 21m omlet fence and made a meduim sized grass run too but this has turned into grass mush after 2 weeks of them destroying it lol. I poo pick the coop every day but find it difficult to poo pick the wood chip run as it blends in? how often should I be changing the wood chip? also does anyone know if i need to disinfect the outer run/grass area as the poop just gets mixed onto the soil so i cant really poo pick the grass very much? I have children so need to keep the area as germ free as I can (I dont let the children into the area but still want to keep it germ free as much as I can). Thank you so much for reading if you have got this far, I have tried to look for others asking similar questions but cannot find the answers . Marie