February Egg Laying

[crazyfeathers]

I was told that the best month for hens to lay is February. My egg production so far this month has increased from 1 to 3 eggs a day to 3 to 5. My old Buff O's have even begun laying again. I am very eggcited about this as my husband always tells me why are we feeding these hens that give us no eggs. lol I have 7 young pullets who just started laying and lay every other day right now, hopefully as it warms up (if it ever does) their laying will increase to daily. I unfortunately lost a BO and a PWL this week not sure why they did not show any signs of illness but were older girls. Much to my husbands chagrin that means I have to add a few extra chickens this spring.
I'm in Wisconsin and it is still very cold, I resisted the urge to add heat to the coops as I read posts from people in Alaska who do not heat their coops and their girls are just fine. But because I have leghorns with very large combs I added a bit more heat to the coops. I don't want them to get frost bitten but I did want them to grow the necessary feathers they needed to keep themselves warm in case of an outage. Right now I need to go repair a roost that must of broke during the night, I guess I feed my girls good lol.
My last thought is I have Norwegian Jaerhons, they started laying about 3 weeks ago, all but 1 still have pale, small combs. Today was the first day I noticed that my Jaerhons comb was large and red, much, much larger than the other ones. It is weird how one day they are pale and then boom they look as they should. Maybe because it was so pale I didn't notice how much larger it was than the other girls. My other girls are not ill as I know that a pale comb can mean that I think they are still maturing. They are small chickens to begin with and very sweet. I would recommend them to anyone who is looking for a friendly, cold hardy chicken.
Have a wonderful day fellow chicken lovers!

 

[Sagetown]

Hello crazyfeathers:
I noted that you have Buff Orpingtons. I have 4 of the Miniature or Bantam Buffs. They are 24 weeks going on 25, and I got one egg at 23 weeks. I also have 3 of the white jap black tail Bantams the same age, and they started laying at 21 weeks, sometimes I collect 3 eggs per day. Wish those BO's would get going. I have a heat lamp in the coop, but since they've feathered out, they don't care if it's on or off, so I leave it off.

 

[crazyfeathers]

I like the BO's they are great foragers and are the first to spot any predators. My BO's are getting on in age and I am just please that after a cold cold winter I caught one of them laying an egg today. I don't want to cull them like my husband says I should if they are not laying, I guess either they heard him or just don't like to lay when it is so cold.
As I said I didn't want to add heat but we were at 50 below for almost 2 weeks with the wind chill, I didn't want to humanize them I wanted to prevent frostbite. As a first time chicken owner I didn't know anything about frostbite, I do now though. I wont be getting anymore chickens with large combs.
I will look into the white jap black tailed bantams are they hard to find? What is their egg size? Thanks for the tip Sagetown.

 

[Sagetown]

Most hatcheries sell the White Black Tail Bantams. They are true bantams, not a miniature of a specific breed. The Roo's have large combs.
Their egg size so far is just over 1 1/2" x 1 1/4", weighing 0.87 ounces.
The only BO egg weighed a little more than an Ounce. My BO's have very small combs at this stage.
50 below zero ! We got down to 11*F / -9*C for a few nights last week.