The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: heavaway on May 11, 2013, 06:56:42 pm
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I live in SW London and usually have eight birds (although we recently lost one to the fox) - four ducks and four hens. We're used to having more eggs than we can handle at this point in the year, but the birds stopped laying in the winter and only two of them have started up again - an Indian runner and an Orpington. Two of the ducks - Campbells - are looking very tatty and taking a while to grow new feathers for the season. The others all look fine. They all look and act healthy. But two eggs a day from seven birds is crazy. Any ideas....??
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Moulting stops egg laying. Do you have rats? or Birds of prey? or magpies? How old are your birds? Is there somewhere other than their nesting box that they may be laying - in a place you haven't found yet? Why are they doing that - mites maybe?.
Lots of possible reasons for missing eggs.
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Have you wormed them recently? It is late to be coming back into lay but one of my ducks only started a month ago or so. And how old are they - guess their laying will drop off as they get older!