Egg Issues

[Delaneygraces]

Hello! In early December, I hung a 12 hour daylight light in my garage (Compensating for the dimness of being inside) for egg production, so I could stick eggs in t incubator a little earlier then I did last year. So far, Ive only had one hen lay consistently for a week, but she stopped and hasn’t laid any for 4 days now. Two other have laid soft eggs, but only once. I’ve given them oyster shell for calcium, they were all dewormed with my usual wormer about a week before the lights went up.

Is there anything else I can do to help with the soft eggs, and lack of laying from the others? They are all under 3 years, and are old English, and modern game bantams. Thank you!

 

[Lady of McCamley]

It takes 14 hours to produce steady egg laying. You need to set your light timer to go on at dusk and add additional hours. Also check the brightness. It doesn't have to be super bright, but you should be able to read a newspaper at bird level.

LofMc

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Also, for continuous laying into the winter, you have to begin extending lighting to 14 hours soon after the summer equinox, or around mid August if you live in the northern hemisphere.

If there is even a short lapse in lighting, you often create a molt and suspend egg production.

I'll link a good article on artificial lighting created by the Maine Agriculture extension (scroll about mid-way for layers)
https://extension.umaine.edu/publications/2227e/

LofMc

 

[Duckfarmer1]

Oh...@aart has it’s actually called areallygoodarticle...but I didn’t bookmark it...it’s great..it’s how I’m doing it now

 

[aart]

Oh...@aart has it’s actually called areallygoodarticle...but I didn’t bookmark it...it’s great..it’s how I’m doing it now

I just used the term "PRETTY good article" to highlight a link to a blog post about lighting basics.

Here's a pretty good article on supplemental lighting.

The link @Lady of McCamley posted is much more detailed.