Why Your Hens Stopped Laying and the Old Fix That Works

You walk down to the coop of a morning, lift the lid on the nest box, and there's nothing in it. Same yesterday. And a month back you were getting five a day and giving them away over the fence. Most folks start blaming the chook at that point. Reckon she's gone lazy, or she's crook, or she's past it. Nine times out of ten, mate, she's none of those things. She's telling you something — you've just got to know how to read her. I've kept chooks out the back for the better part of fifty years, and in all that time I've had hens go off the lay more times than I could count. It's nearly always one of a handful of things, and the old blokes knew every one of them without a vet or a book. I'll not promise you a magic trick that has every hen laying again by Friday. Some of this you won't want to hear — one of the answers is simply that she's old, and no feed in the world fixes old. But most of the time it isn't that. And most of the time the fix costs you nothing. WHAT'S IN THIS ONE • The pillow-let-go-in-a-wind look on the ground, and what your hen's actually spending her energy on • Why more protein and less scratch grain gets her through it faster • The thing that catches nearly everybody in autumn — and why it's not your feed or your coop • How many eggs a hen really gives you each year as she gets on, and the old way of running a flock so the basket never empties • The two dozen eggs I found behind a stack of poly pipe while I was busy convincing myself the birds had gone off • Water, heat, and the one that hides in the cracks and only comes out after dark • The order to check the lot in — cheapest first, so it's an afternoon's job, not a month's CHAPTERS 0:00 Lift the lid. Nothing. 0:49 G'day, I'm Jack 1:39 Have a look at the ground first 3:05 The one that catches everybody in autumn 4:20 The answer nobody wants to hear 5:33 She might not have stopped at all 6:45 Three quiet ones that pinch the eggs off you 8:10 The order to check them in 8:49 Tell me about your chooks 9:22 A chook never lies to you Tell me down in the comments: how many chooks have you got, and when did they last lay properly? If you tell me the month, I reckon half the time I can tell you which one on that list it is. And if you've found a nest somewhere daft — behind the mower, in the wheelbarrow, in the neighbour's hedge — I want to hear it. I'll go first: two dozen behind the poly pipe. ABOUT OLD JACK G'day. I've got a few acres out past the town here, a mob of chooks that reckon they run the place, and a veggie patch that's kept me and the missus in tucker for more years than I care to count. I didn't learn any of this from a book — I learned it from parents who'd been through the tough years, when you didn't waste a thing and you grew what you ate. On this channel I pass on the old ways: growing food, keeping chooks, and making do. No fancy gear. No expensive nonsense. No chemicals. Just what works, same as it did a hundred years back. Subscribe and I'll see you back here next time. A note on what's here: this is fifty years of keeping backyard chooks, not veterinary advice. The numbers are honest averages, not promises — every flock is different. If a bird is genuinely unwell, get her to a vet. My own place is temperate (think Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide), so shift the seasons to suit your own backyard. #backyardchickens #chickens #homesteading