My hens have slowed down laying, but interestingly, it has more to do with the heavy rain and dark days and all the clouds. In between storms, after a couple dry and warm sunny days, they resume laying. Last year, with an extra 2 hours of light from a lamp in their roost in the morning and evening, they laid steadily through their first winter. This Fall they molted, but it barely slowed their egg production as I gave them lots of extra protein to speed up their new feather growth. Anyway, from what I have been experiencing, it is not the feed, it is the unusually cold and long lasting storm systems triggering the hens to stop laying. Some have suggested it is a Purina led conspiracy to force backyard and small egg producers to buy eggs by doctoring the feed so hens won't lay. Some days I get 4 eggs , as I have 4 hens, but when we get a week of solid rain, I may not get but 1 or two eggs a day and sometimes none. It is bitter cold here and we are getting snow and hail, which is highly unusual, it only happens once every 10-20 years at best. I am near San Juan Capistrano California.
For the newbies to chickens, they don't just react to the amount of daylight, but also, since baby chicks do not survive in extremely cold weather, hens also react to extreme heat or cold and back off on laying. This year has been unusual in that we have had a bunch overy heavy cold rain storms moving through as clustered storm systems for up to 2-weeks at a time. This cycle comes at 10, 20, and 50 year intervals, and like all weather,it is unpredictable. There is no chicken feed conspiracy, only hens reacting normally to mother nature. BTW, climate change is for real, but it is just another new-wave name that describes the 4 seasons. We get extreme cold and heat in the seasons and sometimes they overlap or are colder, warmer, wetter or dryer, it's just nature. The real reason for "climate change paranoia" is to get more money out of people and charge more for energy like fuel and electricity, it is all about exploiting people ignorance of how weather and the four seasons work to get more money .
For the newbies to chickens, they don't just react to the amount of daylight, but also, since baby chicks do not survive in extremely cold weather, hens also react to extreme heat or cold and back off on laying. This year has been unusual in that we have had a bunch overy heavy cold rain storms moving through as clustered storm systems for up to 2-weeks at a time. This cycle comes at 10, 20, and 50 year intervals, and like all weather,it is unpredictable. There is no chicken feed conspiracy, only hens reacting normally to mother nature. BTW, climate change is for real, but it is just another new-wave name that describes the 4 seasons. We get extreme cold and heat in the seasons and sometimes they overlap or are colder, warmer, wetter or dryer, it's just nature. The real reason for "climate change paranoia" is to get more money out of people and charge more for energy like fuel and electricity, it is all about exploiting people ignorance of how weather and the four seasons work to get more money .
How did I never know this before?
