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?

On Fri, 9 May 2008 08:31:00 -0500, "Amy Blankenship"
Amy_nospam at (no spam) magnoliamultimedia.com> wrote:


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?

Hi Amy,

No, I don't have any neighbors, and I feed and water the birds myself.
The feeders hold a 4-5 day supply, and I water every day. The birds
are basically housed under identical conditions, and they are fairly
close together; one is in a side yard, and the other in front.
Only differences in coop1 are the rooster in the pen, and 2 fewer
birds.

Try taking him out for a couple of weeks and see if they relax.
Some boys can be bullies even if they are not damaging the hens.
Do both pens eat exactly the equivalent amount for the number of birds?
and Drink?

Worm load really needs a faecal test - not what you can see with the naked
eye.

Have you been over them for mites lice and other hangers on?

On Fri, 9 May 2008 16:04:07 +0100, " Jill"
news at (no spam) NOSPAMkintaline.co.uk> wrote:

Try taking him out for a couple of weeks and see if they relax.
Some boys can be bullies even if they are not damaging the hens.
Do both pens eat exactly the equivalent amount for the number of birds?
and Drink?


Pretty much identical. The Rock/Nique pen has always eaten a bit
more than the mostly delaware pen. Not much more, but at least
noticeable given there are 2 less birds and a roo.

JustTom wrote:
On Fri, 9 May 2008 16:04:07 +0100, " Jill"
news at (no spam) NOSPAMkintaline.co.uk> wrote:

Try taking him out for a couple of weeks and see if they relax.
Some boys can be bullies even if they are not damaging the hens.
Do both pens eat exactly the equivalent amount for the number of birds?
and Drink?


Pretty much identical. The Rock/Nique pen has always eaten a bit
more than the mostly delaware pen. Not much more, but at least
noticeable given there are 2 less birds and a roo.

I hate to think how dangerously you're messing the minds of Australian
readers! Even in New Zealand the word "roo" flashes up a bizarre mental
picture of a KANGAROO mingling in an over-familiar fashion with chooks -
and we NZers know that Australians' minds are easily confused compared
to our own infinitely superior ones.

I offer this information in a caring spirit. For all their faults the
Australians are our cousins across the ditch and we can't let people
outside the family go around confusing them and driving them to XXXX.

[Stir, stir, cue mutual accusations of sheep violatin'.]

On Fri, 16 May 2008 00:51:30 +1200, A_ L _P <hay_hell_pea at (no spam) xnet.co.nz
wrote:

JustTom wrote:
On Fri, 9 May 2008 16:04:07 +0100, " Jill"
news at (no spam) NOSPAMkintaline.co.uk> wrote:

Try taking him out for a couple of weeks and see if they relax.
Some boys can be bullies even if they are not damaging the hens.
Do both pens eat exactly the equivalent amount for the number of birds?
and Drink?

Pretty much identical. The Rock/Nique pen has always eaten a bit
more than the mostly delaware pen. Not much more, but at least
noticeable given there are 2 less birds and a roo.
I hate to think how dangerously you're messing the minds of Australian
readers! Even in New Zealand the word "roo" flashes up a bizarre mental
picture of a KANGAROO mingling in an over-familiar fashion with chooks -
and we NZers know that Australians' minds are easily confused compared
to our own infinitely superior ones.

I offer this information in a caring spirit. For all their faults the
Australians are our cousins across the ditch and we can't let people
outside the family go around confusing them and driving them to XXXX.

[Stir, stir, cue mutual accusations of sheep violatin'.]

I would never besmirch the honor of a sheep...

I used roo partly because I thought that was a term I'd seen the
euro-crowd use and thought I was addressing someone from across the
pond, and secondly because I got tired of misspelling it. I'm using
free agent so no frills like a spell checker, and my lazy fingers tend
to hit the "t" before the "s" giving us a "rootser" which bring to
mind the large porkers I have hogging off some of my woodlot instead
of my lone male bird.


OTOH, we're basically even. Just about everyone here uses the word
"chook" which was basically meaningless to me. It took a few days of
reading to realize that it wasn't either some kind of wonderful exotic
bird that I'd never heard of, or a bizarre cross between a chicken and
a rook.

Chook is mostly used by the NZers and Aussies esp me because I can't get