No eggs from my chickens. Not molting.

[Wise Farm]

Hi. This is Eva. I have 9 pullets that are 9 months old. I live in Alaska, but they have a well lit coop, and it's been under -10 degrees celsius for the past few weeks. When it started getting dark sooner we neglected the lighting for a little bit so they stopped laying. Now they have been on a regular lighting schedule for about a week, but still no eggs. They are not molting, and the 2 and 3 year olds have been laying an egg every other day. They are in the same coop. The breeds are Orpington, Chantecler, Wyandotte, EE, Black sex link, Red sex link, Prodution red, and 2 mutts. Thanks.
Eva

 

[aart]

It can take awhile for the lighting change to have an effect, lighting should be increased slowly to ~14 hours per day to avoid stress from drastic change.

Surprising that the older hens are still laying.


My notes on supplemental lighting, and good article link, maybe something there will help:

The not laying because of the short days/long nights. Sometimes first year layers will lay all winter without supplemental lighting, sometimes they won't.
Older layers need 14-16 hours of light to lay regularly thru winter. Last winter I used a 40 watt incandescent light(this year I am using a CFL) that comes on early in the morning to provide 14-15 hours of light and they go to roost with the natural sundown. Last year I started the lighting increase a bit late(mid October), the light should be increased slowly, and the pullets didn't start laying until late December. Here's a pretty good article on supplemental lighting. Some folks think that using lighting shortens the years a hen will lay, I don't agree with that theory but I also plan to cull my older hens for soup at about 3 years old.

 

[Wise Farm]

Thank you!

 

[pdirt]

x2 what @aart said, very good advice. Some people notice the effect the next day, some in a week, but most much longer, even up to a couple months. Depends on a lot of things, including the individual chickens.

 

[Wise Farm]

Yay! We are getting 2-3 eggs a day now! Some of them still lay on the floor though. I'll put the ceramic eggs in later.