Do chickens slow down eating for winter?

[IamRainey]

Typically, they will eat 50% more in the winter. Could be they were sharing their feed with passer bys.

I don't deal with much cold but it seems to me they might need even more to generate more body heat even if they're not laying as much.

 

[CCUK]

Typically a chicken will eat about 130g of feed a day. Mine are eating about 90g. I think the lack of sun, bad weather, lack of being out doing chicken things and just hanging around the coop and not laying are all contributory to less feed consumption.

 

[centrarchid]

When all else equal, my hens when in lay eat more. During peak of molt when feathers are providing less insulation and conditions are cold, they eat more relative to similar hens not in lay. As insulatory value of feathers improves, feed intake tends to back off a little if not in lay. When it gets really cold and windy for a protracted length of time, feed intake can reach peak, even more than when hens in lay. If they experience a cold snap, then feed can drop off greatly for a few days. I think they undergo physiological changes during that which may help them against cold later. Then feed intake will pick back up.

Things are much easier to read with individually confined roosters as not complicated laying.

 

[Willmore]

As I know, under natural conditions, chickens slow down from egg laying and breeding during the winter. Chickens molt in autumn, so by the winter months they have new feathering. During the winter they require additional feed to keep warm, and you must ensure their drinking water doesn't freeze.
I found information about it in this Academic writing app.

 

[Shadrach]

As I know, under natural conditions, chickens slow down from egg laying and breeding during the winter. Chickens molt in autumn, so by the winter months they have new feathering. During the winter they require additional feed to keep warm, and you must ensure their drinking water doesn't freeze.
I found information about it in this Academic writing app.

A bit of math might help here.
There are various estimates regarding how much a hen eats during a day.
This estimate varies from breed to breed but a good rough guide average is 140g or 4.9 ounces.
In the laying season, again it varies with breed and other factors, a hen over a week will lay 5 eggs.
An average egg weighs 55g or 1.9 ounces.
All the weight of the egg must logically come from what the hen eats.
So, roughly when a hen is laying just over one third of her food intake gets used to make an egg. That is quite a large proportion.
Calories are important in winter to help keep warm, but hens don’t just rely on calorie intake for warmth. What keeps a hen warm is her ability to adjust her feathers in order to trap air which gets heated by radiant heat from her body. Some heat is inevitably lost because the feather arrangement isn’t a perfect insulator.
Generally hens are less active in the winter months and less activity means less calories burnt. In short chickens tend to conserve calories during the winter months.
So, the chickens primary method of keeping warm isn’t through burning calories, it’s through insulation and calorie conservation.
You can find some fairly convincing papers on the Internet that will tell you the world is flat.

 

[Beer can]

I don't know if it cause they tend not to lay much in the winter, shorter days, less active anyway, but my birds eat less in winter. I've always heard the opposite but mine definitely eat less.

 

[RustyBucketFarmGirl]

My girls are eating more feed. Their limited access to free range bugs and things has caused them to stay close to the coop and the feeder. I kind of expected that but this is my first winter with chickens so i have only this year to go on. Good! Luck! I am in Ohio and my water froze weeks ago and we have had snow on the ground for over a week. Had to make a lot of adjustments quickly!

 

[Shadrach]

My girls are eating more feed. Their limited access to free range bugs and things has caused them to stay close to the coop and the feeder. I kind of expected that but this is my first winter with chickens so i have only this year to go on. Good! Luck! I am in Ohio and my water froze weeks ago and we have had snow on the ground for over a week. Had to make a lot of adjustments quickly!

Your post makes rather more sense. In the winter it is quite possible that chickens eat more of the commercially produced feed but it's probably because they aren't getting the supplemented by what they would forage during other seasons.
It is really surprising just how much by weight a free ranging chicken consumes by foraging.

 

[Birdinhand]

you're at a very similar latitude as WA state where I am. the days are getting super short. before I added a light on a timer, I was seeing the hens get up around 10 and back on the roost at 3, a very short day. they became relatively inactive, stopped laying and stopped eating so much. a 60W equivalent LED bulb is cheap to run and has dramatically improved their activity level and egg laying. the lack of laying in the winter isn't them resting up for the spring, it's a major hormone imbalance due to endocrine insufficiency caused by a lack of light exposure... I'd put money on it that that is what you are seeing, the chicken version of seasonal effective disorder.

 

[centrarchid]

Part of my observations are based on birds housed singly for essentially the whole year. The pens have a great deal of airflow. It is replicated, a lot, over many years where feed allotments are tracked.

Assertions need to be made in context of birds being outdoors, indoors and to what degree conditions are further managed.