Egg Laying during cold weather

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I'm with you, Beekissed. My pullets are all coming on like gangbusters right now, and I'm getting more eggs than I need. My fridge runneth over. I do believe it's typical for pullets in winter, though, because pullets are programmed to lay--it's what they do, and they'll do it even if the weather is cold (up to a point, I guess--we haven't had any below zero temps or anything like that).

Force laying is unnatural and hard on the hens. They should only do what nature intended them to do, otherwise they get weak and can get sick, they will die much sooner as well. You want the best, healthiest eggs which is why you got them, feed them good laying mash or laying pellets, lots of fresh clean water, a nice roost and let nature take its course...

DonsDaughter66 said:

Force laying is unnatural and hard on the hens. They should only do what nature intended them to do, otherwise they get weak and can get sick, they will die much sooner as well. You want the best, healthiest eggs which is why you got them, feed them good laying mash or laying pellets, lots of fresh clean water, a nice roost and let nature take its course...

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If by forcing them to lay you mean adding light, I have never had "sick" chickens because of this in 21 years. To each his own, but do not make a blanket statement based on your views alone. I am not going to feed chickens all winter & get no eggs.

Seems you get different answers from different people, some say putting a light on during winter will "wear" them out faster and others say it doesn't make a difference.

I don't put a light out for my hens and I didn't get any......not one egg from October til last week! My coop is well insulated but here it does get very cold (-20) at times, some times my hens didn't even want out of their coop.

All I know is if they don't get 12-14 hours of light their egg production basically stops.

Feed is expensive and I do like my "homegrown" eggs much better than store bought, so I am having hubby install a timer on the light so they can have their light. Because I didn't get any eggs last winter, hubby now thinks it's too expensive for hens, so I might not get any new ones this year maybe if they did lay during the winter I could of gotten more. They sure are addictive.

I will tell you this, I have had one hen die (unknown reasons) and another almost died, luckily I was able to save her, with no light on during winter, so I don't believe that having a light on during some hours for winter would make them sick or weak, maybe even the opposite is true.