MissLeigh, it may help to create your own thread.
This is generally what I recommend for egg-laying hens.
- Remove Eggs
- Rearrange the cage
- Move the cage to a new location
- Use a cage grate
- Get a new cage/Use a different cage
- 12-14 hours of complete darkness
- Full Spectrum Lighting/Better Lighting
- Lower the indoor temperature
- Decreace calcium and protein within the diet (if she is on a high calcium & protein diet prior to laying eggs)
- Remove anything that could be taken as a nest
- Remove anything that could be used as nesting material
- Don't allow her in any dark place or enclosed area
- IMPORTANT: save the eggs in the fridge
- If she lays more than 3-4 eggs, put them back in the cage
- Leave the Eggs
- Leave the eggs alone in the cage
- [Optional] Replace with fake eggs (prevent eggs from breaking)
- Increase calcium
- Let hen sit on eggs for 3-4 weeks or until she gets bored of them
- Once done sitting, toss
Reducing protein may only be good if you have a bird on a high protein diet. Pellets, grains and legumes usually are the main sources of protein. (besides seeds) I had a bourke hen on Harrison's High Potency and I was able to get her to stop laying eggs by switching her to the Adult Lifetime diet. If your hen is eating the AL, then try Roudybush or Lafeber pellets, or put her on a seed diet temporarily!
The main thing is, is that she's laying eggs because something within her environment (diet, cage, toys, cage placement, day/night hours, quality of light, etc) is telling her to, and she wont stop until the triggers to egg laying are removed. If she gets 12-14 hrs of sleep per night, try 16 hours of sleep for two weeks, at least. If that doesn't help, then increase the amount of light to 16 hrs. (aka 8 hrs of darkness)
And yes, Bibi means from the time the sun comes up (i.e. keep the curtains open!) to the time the sun goes down.... whatever time that is. My birds wake with the sun and sleep with the sun. This means that in the summer they may only get 8-9 hrs of sleep (sun comes up sometime after 5am and goes down around 9pm), but in the winter they may get around 14-15 hrs of sleep (sun comes up after 7am and goes down after 4pm). I don't have any birds laying eggs in the winter! Egg laying is mostly in the spring to summer time, occasionally as late as the fall... but I hardly get any eggs in the fall. The temperature inside the house also fluctuates with the seasons, instead of being a constant temperature year round. I don't have chronic egg layers - not even in hens that were chronic egg layers before they came to me!