Help, no eggs since August 2018

[urbanutah]

Thanks. Maybe I'll just stick with it and not let them go. It certainly hurts.

Laying hens are a labor of love. Hang in there! We love knowing where our eggs come from (when our girls are laying) and know what our hens are fed and how they are cared for, so for us it's worth the wait for those glorious golden yolks. Not a single organic free-range store-bought egg can compare. I think heavier hen breeds tend to molt earlier than others. Breed also plays a big role in how prolific a hen lays so be sure to choose breeds that are big egg producers as they tend to lay longer into fall and will often lay here and there through winter.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Sounds normal to me. Those hens are probably getting on 3 years old and you're in RI. They won't lay much through the winter anymore. That's just normal. Eggs are as much a seasonal food as any plant unless, like plants, you take special measures to keep them producing through winter. In the spring they will start laying again, a healthy number, maybe 4-5 a week.
Young birds lay more, so if this frustrates you, soup is a legitimate option. I always like to keep a couple pullets in my flock to get some eggs over the winter for baking and about nothing else. In the summer months I eat eggs almost daily.

 

[urbanutah]

Thanks. Maybe I'll just stick with it and not let them go. It certainly hurts.

I noticed other posts say they cull them at 3-4 years old. As an urban girl (okay...middle-aged lady) I have had these culling talks with myself from time to time, I even bought a tree culling cone, but I'm still struggling with killing my girls. They are my morning coffee company on the back patio, even when it's 20 degrees outside. Not that I don't think about how yummy the soup would be because I'm sure it would be amazingly delicious; I just haven't worked up the nerve to go through with it yet. I do add 2 new chicks every 2-3 years to keep the eggs coming and the older girls seem to die off naturally at about the same rate so it's working so far.

 

[rhodyray]

Sounds like a plan.

 

[rhodyray]

The coop and run are within two feet of our driveway and there's very little traffic. Could this be a reason they are not laying? In the summer the hens would sit on the perches in the run and not move when the car was backed out of the garage so I don't think that's a problem.

 

[urbanutah]

The coop and run are within two feet of our driveway and there's very little traffic. Could this be a reason they are not laying? In the summer the hens would sit on the perches in the run and not move when the car was backed out of the garage so I don't think that's a problem.

Not much seems to bother them, typically. I think they are just on their winter hiatus and I suspect their early molt caused you to have an abnormally long eggless period.

 

[fur-mum]

Hens need enough sunlight to stimulate egg laying, and in the winter when days are shorter it is common for them to stop. Even my pullets stopped laying during the winter their first year, the only one that kept laying through most* of the winter was my Silkie, but even she took about a 6-8 week break in late December -January. A lot of people seem to have luck with supplemental light in the winter to stimulate egg laying, but I don't know much about the specifics of that. I'm alright with them getting a break for a couple months.