Do you have backyard hens and are wondering “why have my egg laying hens stopped laying eggs?  You are not alone!  But don’t panic because egg laying can stop or slow down for a number of reasons. “Normal egg production” can vary for a lot of different reasosn.

If you decide to keep egg laying hens, you will soon find out how much fun they are to keep around and how wonderful their fresh eggs taste.  Anyone that has ever kept egg laying hens before knows that the number of eggs they lay fluctuates. While all healthy hens will lay eggs, some lay more eggs than others.  You can buy certain breeds of egg laying hens that were bred specifically to lay more eggs than other breeds. But pullets (hens under one year of age) lay more eggs than older hens.

The question is, what do you do when your normally prolific egg laying hens either stop laying completely or your egg product substantially drops all of a sudden for no good reason that you can determine?  You may wonder if your hens have some mysterious illness that has made them all stop laying about the same time.  What do you do? 

First of all relax!  All egg laying hens can stop laying eggs for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with illness, although they could also be sick.

What are some of the common reasons for egg laying to stop?

1. Molting causes your hens to either stop laying completely or to lay sporadically due to the extra stress on their bodies of losing old feathers and growing new ones. 

2. Broody henswill stop laying eggs.  How can you tell if a hen is broody? If you notice a hen that is sitting in one area all the time and she doesn’t get up and move around, she is probably broody. 

3. Hens that have recently raised chicksmay not start laying again for a few months. 

4. Stressis another factor that can shut down egg production.  Find out more about the causes of stress.

5. Extremely hot weather or cold weatherand less daylight hours will also cause either a decrease in egg laying or it can actually shut down egg production completely. 

These are only a few of the reasons why your egg laying has stopped. There are lots of other reasons for egg laying to stop or slow down. 

 CLICK HERE to learn about more reasons why your egg production has dropped or stopped completely and some possible solutions for some of the common problems.  Still not sure if your egg production is normal? CLICK HERE to find out more about normal egg production in chickens.

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