Do chickens lay in Winter?

I live in PA. I have a flock of 18- 20 month old Buff Orps, Brahmas, Easter Eggers, and Cochins . They molted Sept to Oct. I got no eggs some days and 2-3 other days . The past 2 weeks I started getting 5-7 eggs a day so things are picking up.
It's been cold as 12 degrees here and now in the 40s. My 19 week olds have started with a few eggs this past week. There are 16 of them. They are Barred Rocks, Rhode Island whites, Ameraucanas and Easter eggers. I have 4 Spitzhauben too . I expect they will start laying more in the next month or so. I usually get some eggs all winter but it's definitely less. I am surprised my younger pullets have started to lay already. I wasn't expecting any eggs from them until around February.
I don't use any lighting . Your Pullets should start laying soon.
TRUST ME! I will be waiting! :)
 
I'm in Oz so slightly different but I have more trouble with my Rocks in summer. They lay all winter but go broody all summer & stop laying. :lau My last POL buy was March/April & the girls all came on the lay over winter & are still laying over summer. I will have a better idea of who's going to do what next summer but as we are sub~tropical we get more winter daylight hours than most.
 
Most say chickens don't lay in winter. I know a few whose pullets have come into lay during winter and are laying still. My Orpingtons show all the signs of being able and ready to lay eggs. It is winter here . What's up?

Before we domesticated them chickens followed a standard pattern. They would lay eggs and raise chicks when the weather and food were good and stop laying and use what food was available in the fall to replace worn out feathers. Then when the weather and food got good again and they did not meed as much energy to stay warm, they'd repeat the cycle to lay eggs and raise chicks. Days getting longer and shorter triggered those changes.

But we domesticated them. We've bred some of them to lay a lot of eggs and hardly ever go broody. We feed them pretty well year around. This thing called electricity means they don't necessarily have to rely on natural light. Some still pretty much follow the original schedule but we've really messed up the instincts on many of them.

Even if you leave them relying on natural lights it's still not that unusual for some pullets to skip the molt their first fall/winter and lay all the way to the following fall. Then practically all of them will molt when days get shorter. Most stop lying when they molt but especially if you feed them well they may lay some while molting. My hens often return to laying when they finish the molt, even if the days are still getting shorter. I do not mess with natural light so days may only be 10 hours long. Some may even go broody in the winter.

Most chickens will at least pay lip service to the original routine, but the way we've messed with many of them's instincts it's only lip service for some. If you mess with the lights you can have some pretty dramatic changes from that routine.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom