No Eggs in 3 Weeks

[chicknnugget]

This is my 2nd winter with hens. Last year at this time I was still getting a few eggs a week, from my small flock of 4 laying hens. This year however, I have not got an egg in over a month. I have added some Christmas lights in coop last night to see if that helps. I will ease them into more light little by little, and hope that in a few weeks I will get one egg now and again. Thank goodness my sister has a large flock of chickens, so I don't have to buy eggs. Her girls are not so lazy as mine!

 

[FranklinFarm]

I have 9 Hens not sure which is laying but I've been getting 4 eggs a week so far but I was just wondering if they stop completely

 

[blackaustralorp]

fdkaiser your hens mat be laying from stress of the deaths I wasn't allowed to take care of my hens for about a week and one of them stopped laying for 3 weeks till I put apple cidar vinegar in their water. if you put 4-5 teaspoons of it in their waterer (don't if its a metal one) it helps them deal with stress.

 

[Irishhenman]

fdkaiser your hens mat be laying from stress of the deaths I wasn't allowed to take care of my hens for about a week and one of them stopped laying for 3 weeks till I put apple cidar vinegar in their water. if you put 4-5 teaspoons of it in their waterer (don't if its a metal one) it helps them deal with stress.

ACV does not help them deal with stress, it is given to hens to help regulate the acidicy in their digestive system, prevent sour crop etc

 

[MtnShadowFarms]

We have around 30 pastured laying hens. The move-able coop is surrounded by poultry fencing. We started out moving them every few days, but now it's every few weeks. They have a very large area to free range, and we give them scraps daily in addition to their feed. We started out a few months ago with 52 from 3 different batches, all around a year old with a few pullets. We know one of the batches was laying very well before we got them. We lost hens from predators more than likely. We've caught raccoons on camera, as well as possum. We then acquired another small batch of laying hens about the same age who were also laying very well. At the most, we've had a dozen eggs a day, and that was rare. We averaged around 7-9 and then it went down to 4-6. For the last couple weeks, since the shorter days, 0 eggs! I am heartbroken. I have the hens because I want eggs. Of course, back when we had 52, we had high hopes of making money selling eggs. I think we we were able to sell maybe 8 dozen. Right now I would be content with having enough for our family. It is KILLING me to buy eggs from the store. I read all the posts about adding light. Biggest problem is that they are out in the pasture; can't get lighting out there, and I'm not interested in risking a fire. We already had one this year in our kitchen. Is it just the shortened days, or could there be something else going on? It doesn't look like any of them are molting.Is it normal to have absolutely no eggs, especially with 30 hens?

 

[FranklinFarm]

Anybody know how to keep snakes out of chicken coops