Free Range Chickens Haven't Produced in Over 4 Months! (No Winter Here)

We haven't found an egg on our free range birds in over four months. We live near the equator in the jungle. We were getting lots of eggs until a few months ago, and then it just stopped completely. Is that normal? Thought maybe it was the dog, so we penned up a few of the bigger hens for a week with nest boxes. We haven't even heard them making those egg-laying screeches that accompany laying for a long time now.

We have about 60 birds total. The oldest 3 or 4 birds are about 2.5 years old. Some are too young to lay, but the majority of the flock is between 1 to 2 years old.

Been providing lots of calcium carbonate with moringa powder for a couple months. Feed has been whole kernel corn from a 4liter container once a day, and usually about the same amount of kitchen scraps. We didn't give them kitchen scraps prior to four months ago. That is a new addition as an attempt to get them to start laying again. They eat a lot of grass, forage for bugs.

We've mowed almost the entire area where they are. When we used to mow their area, we would find hidden nests, and sometimes hit them with the weedwacker. We haven't found any hidden nests. Even looked in the forest. Nothing.

One variable is that we moved them from one hill on our property to a different hill. Shortly thereafter, the egg-laying began to decline. Maybe it's poor soil (the soil is worse than the previous area)? The birds otherwise look healthy. Lots of the hens look bulky.

If it's something eating the eggs, it's not leaving any bit of evidence. However, the fact that we haven't heard the usual egg-laying noises in a long time is telling.

You live near the Equator in the jungle? Wow. East or West?

I've never been to the jungle. Know nothing about what happens there. But one thing you could try is start eating a chicken at a time. See what's in their gullet, and if they have any unlaid eggs. If they have little food or the wrong food in the gullet, that could be the problem. You moved them, maybe they are getting something they shouldn't be eating. If they have eggs inside, then either they are hiding the eggs really well, or snakes or some other animal is getting them. The absence of egg laying sound does not positively mean they are not laying eggs. Who knows, maybe they are too scared to cluck.

There could be any number of reasons for your chickens to stop laying - are they moulting, have you checked them for mites, lice and/or worms, do they have access to fresh water?

You mentioned that you have relocated them perhaps the soil in the new area does not have as many insects for them to forage. Chickens need a good amount of protein in their diet and the corn may not be providing enough?

Do you have snakes? Snakes love eating eggs.

Here are a couple of threads that might offer some suggestions;

when egg production was in a slump.  I have used whey powder but it’s expensive.  Powdered skim milk is what I use instead.   I use 1/2 Tablespoon or 3 grams per bird per day.  I mix it up with water and make a feed mash or let them drink it while warm during the coldest times.   This adds about 2 % additional protein to their ration and helps to address the otherwise complete lack of animal protein in their diet from insects.

https://permies.com/t/211814/feed-chickens-lay-winter

https://permies.com/t/178499/alternative-feeds-chickens

There could be a few things going on.

Chickens don't lay when they're stressed. The stress can take many forms. It can come from many different directions. That they haven't been laying since you moved them, started feeding them table scrap, and there may be other things that you don't yet know about does say that there's something happening. Or not happening.

They aren't laying. That seems a basic. You would hear them cackle about it if they were. Egg song is a basic chicken thing. That they aren't singing means they aren't laying which means there's not something eating the eggs.

Are they molting? It seems a really long time for a molt to be going on, but it can take some birds longer to finish up.
If they're too fat - not at a healthy weight for their frame, they will have problems laying and it might stop them. You say they have a good size, but are they too heavy?
They have calcium and corn. They eat bugs. Have you tried supplementing their protein? I would have thought the moringa and scraps would fill that space, but maybe not.

Are they sick? If they are sneezing or showing some other sign of not feeling well, they might be fighting an infection and not have enough resources to lay.
Is something disturbing them and/or causing them stress? Chickens will stop laying when they are moved, a condition changes, or their food changes. They stop laying when they're sick, broody, or have too little protein or poor quality food. They will gradually stop laying with age, but their eggs get larger too, so that's generally okay and they keep laying.

Really, I don't know what could be stopping them unless there's a parasite, predator, or outside influence that is stressing them out.

What breeds do you have?
I find it odd that they are looking healthy, and yet you aren't finding any eggs. My free range hens lay all over everywhere, but they still lay. Yours obviously aren't, since you tried pulling them in (although part of me is convinced that chickens are capable of holding back eggs in stressful situations, lol). Are their combs bright red? Have you felt their pin bones to see how wide they are? Are they molting? Do they have tons of lice? Or maybe not enough water?
My biggest guess after reading your description is actually that they are too fat. If you've been loading on the additional food, specifically if it's really great foraging at the moment, they may be way overweight. A couple years ago my flock of probably seventy hens had dropped down to laying one to five eggs a day, and they weren't that old either. It was mid-winter here in Wyoming, so I had been layering up the food in easy access feeders in order to keep them healthy, and I was so confused when they simply stopped laying (I know they drop off in the winter, but I've had chickens for a long time and this was unusual). I evaluated a number of the chickens, and noticed a discrepancy in their weight. The larger, higher on the pecking order hens were laden with fat rolls, and the smaller hens were super skinny. All in all, no one was fit enough to lay anything. I changed my food amount and spread it around scratch grain style, and they all popped back into laying and were a balanced weight. I hadn't realized that overfeeding could be such an issue, but it obviously was for my flock. I don't know how much else you supplement, or if you had been supplementing much before they started dropping off, but it may be a good idea to evaluate the weight of the hens along with my other questions.

We butchered one of our hens last week and inside were many eggs that looked like she would've started laying within the next month.

Could be snakes. Snakes are common here: Boa constrictor, abundance of Bothrops atrox, and we've sighted a large specimen of Clelia clelia on occasion. But I figure we'd hear some commotion from time to time if there were a snake eating each and every egg. We haven't had a predator strike a bird in a long time. We have a nesting area in a dark, retired chicken tractor with nest boxes. Check mulitple times per day. The chicken sector is very well-manicured nowadays, and it's been a long time since we've seen any decent-sized snakes there.

Probably a protein deficiency: Kitchen scraps (mostly veggie skins), moringa, and corn kernels doesn't sound  like the best high-protein diet.

The soil in their new area was terribly leached when we inherited it. It is soggy and acidic. Recently we stopped noticing the visual signs of iron and aluminum saturation that were often present as a surface film in puddles of runoff water. That sounds extremely dire, but unfortunately is pretty common in tropical deforested areas. The fruit trees are starting to grow normally after being stunted. The chickens are now helping that process too, and it looks like the pH balance is being restored progressively. I wonder if saturation of such elements in highly acidic soils (pH 4-4.5) has negative effects on chickens. Don't think that is the problem with the eggs though.

Birds are visually healthy. Deep red combs, not obese, active, alert.

I wanted to say that being free range, maybe they lay the eggs in the bushes, and in hidden spots, but by now you’d be overrun with baby chicks, as when this happens, they tend to sit on them and they hatch.

With that many chickens, you’d find eggs with soft shells or some sort of remnants of eggs. Unless they themselves eat them, and/or some other creatures.

In my experience, egg laying it’s not like a tap that can be turned on and off. They’ll lay, at least the eggs that were “ready”, no matter what the conditions.

Please post if you ever figure out what the cause was for all of us to learn from your experience.

Tenzin, where are you located? Are you in an equatorial area?

We ran totally free range chickens for many years, as in no coop or run at all. They'd roost on the trees and grape arbor. Every time we thought they quit laying we eventually found where the eggs were. They can be creative in hiding them. The most surprising was finding 5+ dozen in a spot between a stack of hay bales and the wall of the barn, a slot too small for a chicken to fit in, but they did it anyway.

I'd believe a slow-down could be nutrition/health-related, but a complete stop in laying doesn't make sense. They're certainly laying some eggs that are just going missing. Stolen or lost.

sree dharan wrote:Tenzin, where are you located? Are you in an equatorial area?

Yes.

I know most everyone is going to jump on this as THE cause: We caught our puppy eating a couple eggs recently.

I still strongly believe that the birds were just not producing. These aren't specific breeds. Just criollo chickens. I think it was protein deficiency. Now that some have started laying again it is obvious that they just weren't producing before. Even one of the most stealth layers is now singing loudly in the morning, which she wasn't doing throughout the previous months. Lots of singing as of this week.

As someone else suggested, it is possible they were moulting. I don't have much experience to know how identifiable that is. Also the break in laying coinided with our very wet rainy season. Could be coincidental, but maybe also a cause.

Even with my best layers, a rain "event" or change in weather patterns will disrupt laying. I'll go from 12 or more eggs a day to 6 or fewer.
Weather changes can really throw a chicken off their  routine. Now, several days in with weather changes, and they'll adapt, but if you're getting regular waves of high and low pressure coming through, they might not be able to adapt quickly enough.
I know hurricanes throw them into a huge stop, but our "rainy season" winters are more about temperature changes and then rain to effect them. Muddy days mean fewer eggs.

I hope you're able to figure out your hens schedule. It sounds like you've figured out the problem and the hens are back on track.

Tenzin Norbu said:
I think it was protein deficiency. Now that some have started laying again it is obvious that they just weren't producing before. Even one of the most stealth layers is now singing loudly in the morning, which she wasn't doing throughout the previous months. Lots of singing as of this week.

Hi Tenzin,   I am the guy quoted above feeding my chickens milk when insects are not available.   I think you are right about protein deficiency being the cause.   You are feeding corn and lime and relying on vegetation and insects to supply the rest of their food.  Nothing wrong with that except it may not always work well if there are too many chickens for the area.  60 birds is not a small flock when it comes to the amount of free range rich in insects that would be required.  If there is no rotation of range areas they can quickly become picked clean of protein.  I would recommend rotating range areas somehow and/or reducing flock numbers.  Sometimes fewer birds is more when it comes to egg production.   Many people are surprised when egg production rises when bird numbers go down.  

Most of us here feed more than just corn to our chickens.  We feed a complete layer ration feed.  The birds lay fairly well on this and nothing else but we try to reduce the amount of layer ration by free ranging.   The more insects my birds eat the less  ration they consume.  Laying is always very productive during these times.   If the range becomes sparse production drops and ration consumption goes up.   Because you do not have a laying ration it is essential to have enough fresh range for your birds at all times.  Often easier said than done.

Tenzin Norbu wrote:

sree dharan wrote:Tenzin, where are you located? Are you in an equatorial area?

Yes.

I know most everyone is going to jump on this as THE cause: We caught our puppy eating a couple eggs recently.

I still strongly believe that the birds were just not producing. These aren't specific breeds. Just criollo chickens. I think it was protein deficiency. Now that some have started laying again it is obvious that they just weren't producing before. Even one of the most stealth layers is now singing loudly in the morning, which she wasn't doing throughout the previous months. Lots of singing as of this week.

As someone else suggested, it is possible they were moulting. I don't have much experience to know how identifiable that is. Also the break in laying coinided with our very wet rainy season. Could be coincidental, but maybe also a cause.

Update: They are now producing lots of eggs. No question about it. They definitely were not producing before. Probably nutritional. Probably protein deficiency as others suggested. Or maybe it was just a lull.