Chicken bald back

[Cloud9]

Hi all, I am at my wits end with my girls at the moment

 

I have had my 3 chickens for almost 2 years and not had any problems. All of a sudden things seem to be going wrong and it is putting me off of keeping them tbh as I have enough stress with family illness as well

 

I thought my girls were going through a moult as egg production is well down - all used to lay frequently - two of them almost daily and the other a bit hit and miss but she didn't used to miss many days. I have been giving them chicken spice. Then they seem to have got lice or mites or something - I'm pretty sure it's not red mite as they are brown in colour and longish with little pincers on the front and jump if poked I bought some mite powder and have been using that as well as disinfecting the house.

 

I must admit that with the wet weather it has been hard to give them as thorough clean as I would like at times but I do change their litter tray about every 3 days and the nest box more regularly due to the mess in it lately which leads me to my most recent problem ..

 

I have had "wet" bedding more regularly and many broken eggs. I had put this down to soft shells because of the moult/lice above but the other day I went to let the girls out and one lingered back and was pecking at the bedding. When I had a closer look she was eating what I presume was the egg white as there was just a tiny bit of broken shell in the next box and again it was quite sodden but no egg.

 

Yesterday I made up a mustard egg as suggested by my mum as apparently my nan used to keep chickens and this is what she did. I slipped the egg in last night (hubby said one was sitting on it later and this morning there was no trace of it! No sign of it anywhere and no sick as I might have expected.

 

My question is what do I do now? I thought it odd that all 3 girls had stopped laying for so so long and now I think I know why.

 

Sorry if I sound dim - it just worries me that they aren't happy or are lacking in something or I am doing something wrong and it is stressing me out.

 

Please please help

 

Ali

[Chook n Boo Mum]

Ali, I'm sorry you are feeling so down

 

Are the girls actually eating the eggs from whole do you think, or are the shells being broken due to lack of calcium & eaten because they are "on show"?

 

Perhaps try putting some limestone flour in their food, a dash of cod liver oil will aid the absorption of calcium from their food too...do they have grit and/or oyster shell on offer to help themselves to ad lib?

 

And Egluntyne's favourite , have you wormed them recently? Sometimes egg production drops if they have worms.

 

I hope something in the above helps you sort your problems and your little devils return to little darlings again

 

I'm sure somebody more knowledgeable will happen along soon & have further words of wisdom..........

 

Sha x

[Egluntyne]

Ditto to all that Wild Mum says.

 

If you put a couple of golf balls or pot eggs in the nest box, they will hurt them selves when they peck at them and it might put them off.

 

Also try to collect eggs regularly, keep the nest box as dark as possible, and make sure they have plenty of fresh drinking water, all of which are reputed to help with this problem.

 

Roll away nest boxes are another way forward.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I can sympathise. I had this problem for a while.

 

Re the mustard eggs, I smeared mustard into the shell of a used egg and left it on the floor of the run (rather than in the nestbox). They did peck it but then there was a lot of furious beak wiping so they obviously didn't like it.

 

I also bought 2 pot eggs and a roll away nestbox (which didn't really work as it doesn't fit into an eglu very well . I can see it would be good in a traditional henhouse though).

 

The problem was resolved but tbh I'm not sure which remedy worked .

 

Good luck .

[Cloud9]

Thanks to you all for your replies. My girls are wormed regularly, and we have grit/oyster shell on offer permanently but I also bake my egg shells and crush them and add them to the grit as well. I was worried previously that this would encourage the girls to eat their own eggs but they haven't bothered before. Do you think I perhaps haven't crushed them enough and so it resembles their eggs too much? The mustard egg was eaten over night/early hours and so I assume the eglu was quite dark?

 

I am further confused today No eggs despite checking 4-5 times today. However there are small feathers in the litter tray today (only about 1 in the nest box) and when I went to shut the girls up for the night the one I suspect is the eater was sitting in the nest box as though she had settled there for the night. I booted her off and onto the roosting bars but I am now wondering if she is perhaps broody? Would this make her eat the eggs?

 

Sorry for so many questions - it's just that we've gone from a very regular egg supply from the 3 girls to 3 a week if we are lucky Feel somehow that I am failing them big time and I am at a loss what to do.

 

I will try the dummy egg - did ask hubby to buy one today when he went to get their feed but he forgot

 

I just want them to go back to being happy laying hens.

 

Thanks again

Ali

[Cloud9]

Getting really despondent now Things haven't changed - if anything it's slightly worse in that I'm not getting any eggs now More feathers around the run too.

 

What is going on? I think the girls must be unhappy about something but I don't know what. Do you think they could be bored? They do free-range for an hour or so most days but their run is now mud rather than grass although hubby has put some pea gravel down on part of it to keep their feet etc cleaner. Do they need anything else in the run to keep them busy?

 

I really don't know what to do I've had them getting on for 18 months with no problems - why now?

 

It's really stressing me out and I feel like I'm doing them a huge injustice in some ways.

 

Ali

[Jools]

How are they in themselves? As active as usual, eating normally, any unusual droppings etc?

 

If there are no other signs of anything wrong, I say it's pretty normal. They are probably about to endure a moult and have a well earned break from laying. A few softies at this time isn't unusual and they're swiftly pecked at and eaten as you've discovered.

 

If this is the case, make sure they have plenty of shelter from the weather, particularly from draughts. Some extra vitamins and minerals won't go amiss and you can add poultry spice to their food or a tonic (something like Lifeguard) to their water. A little extra protein helps them with re-feathering (I feed breeders pellets instead of layers at this time of year) and a spoonful of cod liver oil mixed in each day helps with calcium absorption.

 

If they're free ranging for an hour or so a day and they have access to greenery, I'm sure they're helping themselves whenever they have the opportunity, but if you wanted to give them extra, they're not likely to refuse!

 

Egg eating is quite difficult to cure once they learn how delicious they are. There is such thing as a roll-away nest box, but I don't know if it fits with an eglu or cube. The gist is that the hen lays her egg and it rolls safely out of her reach.

 

HTH