Egg production is Up!

[joedie]

We have 28 hens who have been giving us 12-14 eggs/day since the daylight decreased and it's quite cold. We tried keeping the coop light on till 10pm without any increase in eggs. My DH is generally not the one who takes care of the chickens but I have been incapacitated for the past 2 weeks following surgery and he has been doing the farm chores etc. Apparently he has been giving the girls scratch twice a day and the eggs have increased to 18-22/day for the past week or so. I've told him that scratch is a treat like candy and they should not have so much but his theory is that they have more energy from the corn content in it and it helps "heat them up" giving them more energy to put into production. What do you think? The lights didn't work, it is colder now than ever and production is up?

 

[faykokoWV]

I found having the light on earlier in the morning rather than later at night helped to boost my egg production

the layer feed has what they need in it to produce eggs, eating more scratch can decrease the amount of layer feed that they eat.
Are you feeding a layer feed?

 

[joedie]

Yes, they have access to layer pellets 24/7, oyster shell and always get fed plenty of scraps, ie veggies, yogurt, melons, bananas. With all this, they only produced 12-14/day. I can't explain the boost in production.

 

[The Chicken People]

I agree with the light in the morning theory. I also feed corn to my gals and I find it has helped alot in egg production...JMHO!

 

[WestKnollAmy]

I tried lights in the morning on one of my coops as the fall turned into winter, slowly until I got a few hours added. They actually laid worse. DH said they were mad at being woke up so early when the sun wasn't even thinking of rising!

I took the light out and within a week they were laying much better.

Yes, the corn would help them lay better since they don't have to use as much of their own energy to stay warm and can give more to egg production. I feed a 7 grain scratch here. One of my coops has 70 hens, can you guess how many eggs a day I get? Now that I took the blasted light out I am getting about 50-60 eggs a day. Before the light I was lucky to get 20. These are 2nd year layers and already over their molt.
I just had to test the light theory this year though since so many depend on it. I have about 20 pens and coops and just tried the light on one. What an experiment that was!

 

[Bridget399]

I feed mine scratch to help get their temps when it's cold out. I wonder if the scratch is keep their temps up and they are therefore devoting more energy to egg production?

 

[joedie]

Quote:
That's kind of what we were thinking!