Now that the clocks have been set back one hour and the daylight is 12 hours or less, how severely will egg production decline? I believe that different breeds will slow at different rates and the addition of an external light source may help stimulate better production. My breeds are supposed to lay well thru the winter months (BR, RIR, BSL and EE's). They are well fed and watered, as well. What can I expect from my birds this, their first, winter? I would love to hear from the BYC'ers mounds of experience on this topic. Thanks!!
Other than the two who are molting now and aren't laying at all, my girls have already dropped off in production. All of mine typically lay 5 -6 days straight, and then take a day off. Now my BO and GLW are laying every other day for the most apart, occasionally 2 days in a row, and one of my newbie pullets who just started laying last month is laying every third day. My other newbie pullet is due to start laying any day now... I would think that, besides light, heat/cold would play into it too a little. Chickens dealing with really cold temps might need to put more energies (calories) toward keeping warm than egg production...just a hypothesis.
I sort of posted the same thing this morning. I'm curious to see what answers you get. My girls won't be laying until about February and I am wondering if they will then, or wait til the spring. I am in Mass.
Quote:The breeds you have will probably keep laying fairly well for their first winter--going up to 14 hrs of light may increase production a bit and give them a little more time to eat but normally they shouldn't lower production too much. Actually the number of eggs one gets is dependent more on the number of birds, if you have a few, say less than a dozen, you will notice when they slow down but in a larger flock the loss isn't all that noticeable. Next year, however, you're going to run into moulting which will severely reduce or stop laying for a period of time, so prepare yourself for it.
Our one surviving RIR hen has been slooowly molting for quite some time. Her molting has been so slow that it has seemed to have little to no effect. Though, admittedly; we live pretty far from the equator, so our sunlight tapers off FAST! She has started to slow down from 6.5 a week average down to (guessing) 4.5 a week average. I'm quite curious to see how she's laying in another six weeks.
Now that the clocks have been set back one hour I can assure you this will not effect egg production.
