hens are 6 mothes old and not laying

[Owingsia]

I am no expert but I know with our we only have one that started laying and she is 8.5 months. The others we are still waiting on. We figure it just depends on the bird. They all grow differently and when we start to get eggs we start to get them. We chose to not rush things so the chickens will develop body and bone structure properly. Our birds do free range during the day light hours and eat lots of bugs, grass, vegetation, and the grower feed we give them.

 

[bobelot]

Well I don't think any of them are sick or anything right now but just for the future and I will show u some pics of the chickens later

 

[bobelot]

I just figured out that I have no idea how to post a pic on this writing thing

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

I just figured out that I have no idea how to post a pic on this writing thing

Start to type a reply, then look at the top of the box where all the formatting tools are. On the rightmost grouping of tools (the one that includes the smiley faces) you'll see a box with a very small scene of a house in it. It's the one next to the film strip. Click that and follow the directions.

 

[bobelot]

Hi again where I'm living its starting to get cold like in the minus 1 and 2 and 3 or maybe 1c should I put I heat lamp on there coop now????

 

[Happy Chooks]

As long as there are no drafts, chickens tolerate cold really well. If you get them used to a heat source, then you lose power, they can die. There are chicken owners in Canada and Alaska that don't use heat.

 

[chickened]

If you want them to start laying you can put a small light in the coop to give about 16 hours of total light. This time of year hens come on line later due to short daylight days. Larger birds also take longer to begin laying as a rule. The production birds usually lay the earliest.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

As long as there are no drafts, chickens tolerate cold really well. If you get them used to a heat source, then you lose power, they can die. There are chicken owners in Canada and Alaska that don't use heat.

Happy Chooks is exactly right. Make sure that there are no drafts in your coop, but that's it. You would not be helping the birds by putting in a heater.

Remember, a heat source is different than supplementary lighting. My birds have one standard light bulb that comes on around 4am and turns off at 8am in order to give them a longer day, but no source of heat. I do hang a red heat bulb over their waterer in the winter to keep it from freezing, but the waterer is far away from the roosting area.

 

[bobelot]

But I think I will put a heater In there cause I want them to lay eggs when there is no sun

 

[AKchicken1]

We have 14 new hens all but 1 are in week 20 (9 barred rocks, 4 black se xlinks and 1 much younger ameraucana). We got our first eggs in week 19 and now we are seeing 4 to 7 eggs a day. I run two heat lamps. Red light at night and then at 530 am i switch to white light and run that for at least 14 hours. When it is 20 below or colder I leave the red lamp on as well. We saw 28 below the other night an dthe one red lamp kept the house at 12 above over night. Our house is open so the hens can come and go between the coop and the hen house a sthey wish. All of their food and water is outside.

We fed a meat builder crumble for the first 10 weeks and then switched them to egg layer pellets. We also fed them lots of chickweed during summer and try to provide greens as often as we have scraps now. We toss whole oats in regularly as well. I am new to wintering chickens up here but know that avoiding moisture is important. That is on eof the reasons we have the chicken door open, to keep it dry. Once we get into the 40s and 50s below we will probably have to move the feed an dwater inside and close the chicken door.

We did not start providing heat until we routinely were around zero degrees and like others have said, it probably isn't needed. I did want to make sure they started laying as soon as possible so provided heat and artificial day light. So far so good.