Chicken Egg Production – What To Do When Your Chickens Stop Laying

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Do you enjoy having backyard chickens but lately have come across some issues in your chicken egg production that you are finding difficult to deal with? Here are some tips and ideas along with a helpful “old-timers” remedy!

Do you enjoy having backyard chickens but lately have come across some issues in your chicken egg production that you are finding difficult to deal with? Here are some tips and ideas along with a helpful "old-timers" remedy! #chickens #backyardchickens #raisingchickens

Chicken Egg Production

Walking through the soft, sometimes crunchy grass, you head up the path to the chicken barn. The path under your feet is starting to get well worn from your shoes walking it every day. A slow breeze lifts the hair off your neck and tangles it up a bit as you get closer. The grasshoppers are already singing their summer song and a bird and its friend fly out of the tall grass on your left.

You finally reach the chicken barn and you pull open the old wood door. The hinges complain just a bit as you open the door all the way. You can hear the faint clucking of the chickens outside in their fence and the few that are in the chicken barn give you a quizzical stare.

You reach the nests, piled high with soft wood shavings. You get closer so you can reach in and collect the eggs but then to your surprise….there isn’t any.

Your thoughts are:

  • Somebody stole them! (Ok, probably not rational, moving on…)
  • The chickens stopped laying!
  • The chickens are laying them elsewhere!
  • The chickens are eating them!
  • It’s cold!

Let’s move through these one at a time (minus the first one), to learn how to increase egg production. 

How to Increase Egg Production

1. The chickens stopped laying.

Although unlikely in this case that the chickens would stop laying all at once, after a few years it does happen. If your chickens are a few years old and you notice egg production waning, it’s probably a good time to get rid of them.

It’s good to rotate your chickens about every 2- 4 years, depending on if they aren’t laying or have slowed down on egg production. Chickens can lay longer than 4 years but if you planned on butchering the meat won’t be very good, it will be too tough and stringy.

2. The chickens are laying the eggs somewhere else.

It’s unlikely that chickens will suddenly all start laying someplace else at once. Although I have found eggs in other places than the nest it doesn’t happen very often. If you’ve created a good nest for them with wood shavings or something soft they will keep coming back to it and laying their eggs there.

However, if they don’t have a good nest they will find somewhere else to lay and it’s not a pleasant surprise when you walk through the tall grass and step on a pile of eggs.

3. Are the chickens eating their eggs?

This can be a likely scenario. It’s hard to stop them when chickens start eating their own eggs but fortunately there are several different things you can do to prevent this from happening, and hopefully to stop them if they’ve already started.

First, never ever feed chickens eggshells unless you’ve completely dried and ground them up. Chickens do need calcium in their diet to create the shells on the eggs. Buy a bag of oyster shells at your farm store. They are only around $12 – $14 for a 50lb bag and that will last a long time. In fact, I think we bought ours over a year ago and we still aren’t out yet. Just mix a little in with their regular feed each day to get them to lay nice, hard-shelled eggs. This will also prevent them from accidentally cracking if the eggs get dropped too hard when they are laid, and when a chicken finds a cracked egg, they will peck at it and eat it.

Eating eggs could also mean that the chicken has a lack of protein in their diet. You can check this problem by looking at the color of their beaks. If they are purple or have a purple tinge to them you can be sure they need more protein. Free-range chickens have less of a chance of getting a protein deficiency because they are outside and can eat more bugs. To get more protein in their diet you can also feed them clabber.

4. It’s Cold Outside

Chickens will slow down laying when it’s cold outside and when the days are shorter. Even if you add extra light in their coop (don’t add extra heat!) they won’t pick up to their normal full summer laying schedule.

This is completely natural and will happen every year. It’s nothing to be worried about unless you get to summer and their laying doesn’t pick up again. Give the chickens a little rest and treat them well and they will reward you when longer days come again.

–Learn how to make clabber here!

Working on Your Chicken Egg Production

Chances are that if you have chickens, one or more of these things will happen to you over the years and it’s good to know how to increase egg production. Eggs and chickens are an excellent source of protein or a little extra income and are fairly easy creatures to keep. But like anything else, there are tricks to keeping them and keeping them well.

I know that Merissa has told you that she has some chickens. Well, it makes sense that she has chickens, as she grew up with us having and showing chickens for 4-H. We, too, have a brood full of chickens at our place. We surpass 40 in number, (a few more than your average number of backyard chickens!) so I expect dozens of eggs each day.

Lately, our hens have decided to go on a laying strike, and we’re having a bit of a chicken egg production issue. Our hens vary in age from 20 months to 7 months. Yes, all, except our 2 roosters, should be laying.

One day my husband decided to head over to the local feed store. He was picking up a bale of straw for me and I asked him to talk to them about my hen’s chicken egg production. I am not alone. Others have inquired about chicken egg production problems this time of year (fall and winter).

Here is what she told us to try….it is an “old-timers” remedy for chicken egg production!

She said to add in 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar to each gallon of their fresh drinking water. She also said to put out some “scratch”, which includes corn for them, in addition to the regular table scraps that we feed them. I went out and offered up these two remedies to our birds immediately. I’m not sure which of them worked the best, but slowly their laying picked back up again.

Remember, this little trick won’t work on birds that have had some kind of trauma to stop them from laying (scared by a predator) or chickens that are going through a molt.

Until next time,  Julie

More Articles on Raising Chickens

Learn more about Homestead Living!

Have you ever had to deal with missing chicken eggs? Have you had a decrease in chicken egg production? Have any of these helpful methods worked for you on these issues?

This article on Chicken Egg Production was originally published on Little House Living in October 2011. It has been updated as of February 2023.

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15 Comments

  1. I am pretty new to raising chickens so I appreciate advice. My chickens have slowed down their egg production too. I assumed it was because they are molting. I had heard that they rarely lay when they are molting. I was told to feed them scrambled eggs or yogurt. What is the vinegar supposed to do?

  2. I am pretty new to raising chickens so I appreciate advice. My chickens have slowed down their egg production too. I assumed it was because they are molting. I had heard that they rarely lay when they are molting. I was told to feed them scrambled eggs or yogurt. What is the vinegar supposed to do?

  3. I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE!!! I have a chicken that has recently decided to stop producing and I was wondering why. I’m definitely going to have to try your tricks! Thanks for sharing! 🙂

  4. I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE!!! I have a chicken that has recently decided to stop producing and I was wondering why. I’m definitely going to have to try your tricks! Thanks for sharing! 🙂

  5. Mine have done the opposite – they are youngin’ chickens and are giving us about 3-4 a day (we have 8 gorgeous hens and a very handsome rooster :-). However I put apple cider vinegar in my water every day, give them fresh kale every day, chopped carrots and give them sunflower seeds. Sunflower seeds is supposed to help in egg production too. It gives them essential vitamins and oils. Also, I recently started letting them free range 4-5 hours a day and this has made them the happiest pappies on the earth. They’ve laid more since I’ve done that…

  6. Mine have done the opposite – they are youngin’ chickens and are giving us about 3-4 a day (we have 8 gorgeous hens and a very handsome rooster :-). However I put apple cider vinegar in my water every day, give them fresh kale every day, chopped carrots and give them sunflower seeds. Sunflower seeds is supposed to help in egg production too. It gives them essential vitamins and oils. Also, I recently started letting them free range 4-5 hours a day and this has made them the happiest pappies on the earth. They’ve laid more since I’ve done that…

  7. We use to put a light in their coop to make sure they had more hours of light. we put it on a timer so it came on when it was still dark. gave them more hours of daylight. seemed to help.

  8. We use to put a light in their coop to make sure they had more hours of light. we put it on a timer so it came on when it was still dark. gave them more hours of daylight. seemed to help.

  9. I have been wanting to get chickens for awhile now but my husband has it in his head that its actually more expensive to have the chickens than to just buy the eggs. We do not go through a large number of eggs, maybe a dozen every week or two. Any thoughts on the cost of having the chickens opposed to just buying eggs in a grocery store (aside from the fact that the fresh eggs are sooo much better tasting).

    Thanks,
    Stacey

    1. Stacey, personally I don’t think chickens are worth it for eggs alone. I think they are good for eggs for a couple years and then they make it even more worth it when you butcher and have chicken meat. However if you are buying organic or free range eggs, having chickens might be worth it. It’s also nice being a little more self sufficient by having your own chickens then relying on the grocery store to supply meat and eggs. The price of chicken feed is rising (We pay $14 every 2 weeks for feed for about 15 hens) But then we also keep a heat lamp in their pen in the winter to keep them laying. You also have the cost of buying the chickens in the first place which averages about $2 – $5 per chick. There are ways to save money on keeping chickens though, I think maybe I need to add that to my to-write-article list!

  10. I have been wanting to get chickens for awhile now but my husband has it in his head that its actually more expensive to have the chickens than to just buy the eggs. We do not go through a large number of eggs, maybe a dozen every week or two. Any thoughts on the cost of having the chickens opposed to just buying eggs in a grocery store (aside from the fact that the fresh eggs are sooo much better tasting).

    Thanks,
    Stacey

    1. Stacey, personally I don’t think chickens are worth it for eggs alone. I think they are good for eggs for a couple years and then they make it even more worth it when you butcher and have chicken meat. However if you are buying organic or free range eggs, having chickens might be worth it. It’s also nice being a little more self sufficient by having your own chickens then relying on the grocery store to supply meat and eggs. The price of chicken feed is rising (We pay $14 every 2 weeks for feed for about 15 hens) But then we also keep a heat lamp in their pen in the winter to keep them laying. You also have the cost of buying the chickens in the first place which averages about $2 – $5 per chick. There are ways to save money on keeping chickens though, I think maybe I need to add that to my to-write-article list!

  11. I started our flock going on 4 yrs ago. I procrastinate,plus a lot of thz became pets to our family,long story short we r paying @ least $25+/wk n feed. We have 32 chickens also hv 2 geese & a herd of ducks & i see no solution in sight. I wish i could start clean again & do a lot of things differently.As far as them paying for themselves well Due to molt,less daylight they average now 4-5 hen eggs. Duck eggs, 2-3.

  12. I started our flock going on 4 yrs ago. I procrastinate,plus a lot of thz became pets to our family,long story short we r paying @ least $25+/wk n feed. We have 32 chickens also hv 2 geese & a herd of ducks & i see no solution in sight. I wish i could start clean again & do a lot of things differently.As far as them paying for themselves well Due to molt,less daylight they average now 4-5 hen eggs. Duck eggs, 2-3.

  13. You can’t beat home raised chicken eggs. If you’ve ever eaten the farm-fresh
    (without hormones added) you’ll never want a cheap, standard, store-bought egg again! The yolks are yellower, they stand up instead of squishing out, and are naturally sweet.

    I currently have 11 hens of laying age. I raise 3 hens each year to rotate the stock. I typically get 6-10 eggs a day. There’s more wealth in the health of an egg that has not come from a hen fed with hormones. The price of eating cheaply purchased foods now is the money you end up spending at the doctor or hospital in the future.

    On a homestead, a person can usually find “free” food to supplement hen scratch. All the weeds you pull from your garden…feed the hens. If they’re getting enough to eat every day, they won’t even think about eating anything they really shouldn’t have. Plant a small patch of clover or similar ground cover and either mow or fence that area (temporary fencing is okay). Let the hens roam on it for a while. Not only will they eat the greens, but they’ll scratch around for the ground bugs and help till up the land for next year’s planting. Put them in your garden at the end of the season and they’ll have a great time cleaning up the leftover mess.

    I buy in bulk from a farmer that grows everything he puts into the mix. It’s not certified organic, but he uses natural fertilizers. I split the 1,000lb bags into plastic totes to protect from the weather and rodents. $325 feeds all my hens for a year. I then sell the extra eggs for $5 a dozen and in roughly 5 months I’ve paid for my feed and 1 dozen eggs a week for myself and the rest of the eggs are free money. Sure they slow down production in the winter, but I still average 3 eggs a day in the coldest part of the winter.