Do hens stop laying during Winter?

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ReillyJ

ReillyJ

Chirping
5 Years
Jun 12, 2014
163
7
76
Snohomish, WA
i just got these hens full grown this Summer, they were rescues (in good health) and they layed great up until about 1 1/2 to 2 months ago.

One i assume is a RIR (or Red sex link) and she is still laying almost daily. The Wyandotte and one EE is in molt so of course i don't expect from them and add in the low daylight hours..

However the other EE hasn't laid in at LEAST a month or more and she's not in molt. I don't know how old these hens are but they were laying like champs during the Summer and early Fall.
 
It's winter here and I'm still seeing 11 eggs a day:/ I'm waiting for them to slow down but there are no signs if it. No extra light in the coop either.
 
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Funny how all chickens r different. I got sex links this past April the two reds r still laying but the 3blacks stop around Oct. I from Michigan and offer no extra lighting.
 
I just started with chickens this summer. I have two brothers that have kept chickens for years and I have a close vet friend who raises all kinds of birds. Together the vet friend and I purchased BCM eggs and he hatched them in is incubator. I followed his guidance in the design and construction of my coop adding some things I gleaned from this site and other blogs. One of the unique things we both learned is how important the light is in laying. His BCM's have yet to lay the first egg and he has no light. I have a timer on my lighting that comes on around 3am and goes off at 7am. My BCM's have been laying for 2 weeks now, I have gathered 26 eggs so far.

Here we have two flocks from the same hatch, one with light and the other without. My last store bought eggs for a while…

 
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I posted this on another query, this is how I do it, works extremely well, hope it helps:

There are a lot of opinions on supplementing light to keep the chickens laying during time period where there is less than 12-14 hours of available daylight. Do your research, read and learn, separate science from all the opinions.

That said,

My coop gets 16 hours of light 351 days per year.

I turn lights off for 14 days to have birds go into a controlled moult late September .

Having had to install electricity for the thermostatically controlled water heater, I took advantage and installed a lighting system.

My system has two timers. The first is set to turn the lights on at 5:30am, off at 9pm.

Power goes on, passes through a photocell, then to a 300 lumen LED bulb, 4.8 watts, in the 8x8 foot print coop, and 2 4.8 watt LEDs for the 14x14 foot print outside run.

I light the run because I found the birds huddled outside the coop door in the dark one 5:30am morning...
They have access to the run 24/7, as it is as secure as the coop.

The lights are on only when it is dark enough outside to be necessary.
The time on very closely mimics my Summer Solstice in NJ.

The second timer is set to go on at 8:30pm, off at 9:30pm, a diffused 200 lumen LED 4 watt bulb.
This low light allows the birds to settle in before all lights out and 8 hours of darkness.

This system costs less than $5 per year to operate..
 

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