An old wives tale on how to get your hens laying

A guy on my egg route says his mother used to use cayenne pepper during winter production with great results.

 

My RIR has not layed for about 2 month now ( ready to try anything ) I have the light going on at about 4am now for about 1 1/2 months my white leghorn has been laying good now for about 3 weeks. Now will adding black pepper do anything to my white leghorn ?

 

Quote:yep I heard of that one but never heard of using black pepper before.

I think they refer to it as burning the molt when you do it after they have or while they are molting to get them to start back up sooner.

 

I tried putting pepper soaking in whole corn over night a few days and I didn't notice anything afterwards.

 

Maybe you could put the pepper on the chicken, and tell them that you will eat them if they don't start laying!

 

I gave mine Calf manna (aka protein booster) and they all started laying within 10 days...... I also give mine scrambled eggs once a week. We have had a frozen winter for Texas already and they just keep on laying. I get between 10-13 eggs a day from 15 pullets

 

I was ready to give mine Cayenne pepper but they must have sensed something because they started laying again. A friend told me about it. He said that his mother would make cornbread and add it in, then feed a slice or so a day. I read on here that feeding them hot oatmeal would make them lay. I did try this and I got an egg from everyone of my girls. It's also a nice treat for them on a cold morning.

 

Quote:Me, too. Almost a week after calf manna, almost all are laying again. Great stuff!!

 

If you are not adding light to lengthen the winter days, then you should try that. During the winter, it's not actually the temperature that slows hens down – but the light. Add artificial light so that the daylight hours equal 14. If you can put it on a timer, most people choose to have the extra light be on in the morning as opposed to the night, so the hens will not suddenly be left in darkness when it goes off. I don't have a timer at the moment, so I've been going out in the afternoon to turn it on and then back out to turn it off several hours later. I do often wait for a few minutes with my flashlight so they can get on their roosts, but not always.

A month ago I was down to 6 eggs a day from 17 hens, but after a couple of weeks the production began to rise steadily. The last two days I have gotten 14 eggs daily.