Re: Drop in production


"JustTom" <tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:48242e95.87402336@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi folks,

I have 2 mobile coops that I wheel around on grass each day. They
have wired yard attached to the coop, so birds are protected and
contained in area I put them at all times.

1st coop has combo of 14 barred rocks and dominiques plus 1 rooster.

2nd has combo of 16 delawares and either rocks or 'niques (I
shamefully can't tell the difference).

Coops are basically identical, and birds were born in October and
began laying in the middle of March.

In the beginning, coop1 started earlier, and seemed to settle in
averaging around 14/day. Coop2 started slower, but now is averaging
12-14/day.

Problem is coop1 has just about stopped laying. For almost 2 weeks
now, I'm only getting between 2-4/day. Feed and water are the same
in both pens, and each pen even always gets feed from the same bag.

No worms or anything unusual about their droppings, and they don't
seem to be under any unusual stress. They sing to me when I approach
same as the others.

They can't be eating them because the eggs drop from the nests into a
collection area they can't get to. Haven't found any shells or
anything showing anything else would be getting them either.

I would look at either temperature or neighbors. I had a friend who almost
slaughtered her whole flock until a padlock showed her the birds were
producing just fine.

Also, I once had a kid look after my birds while I was out of town an the
birds were about the same age as yours are now. She decided she didn't need
to come anymore, and my birds were left with no food and little water for
over a day. It took a couple of months for them to get back up to full
production. Any chance anything like that happened to Coop 1?


.

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