My girls are in the second year of life and this is their first molt. It is a mild molt. I am use to getting approximately 11 to 14 eggs a day. Now they are molting and the weather is getting cold, my girls are not laying. I give them oats with tuna and meal worms. lots of protein. one day i had only one egg some days there are none. My question is: Does anyone know a way to keep production up during molts in the winter?
Two year old birds are ready for a full molt and a break. Allowing them to complete the molt and providing light supplementation to bring their 'day length' up to 14 hours might spur egg laying, or you could just let them restart naturally.
You can try hurrying the molt along or getting them back to lay faster by keeping them under lights (14+ hours) and feeding them extra protein etc. Hens won't lay when in a heavy molt, even with production birds the molts usually last around 3-4 months at least. Good article on molting, note months are backwards from US http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/217/moulting-a-natural-process If you want egg production in the winter, a lot of people rotate their flock by culling the oldest birds and getting 1/3 or so new birds every spring so they always have pullets that will lay though the majority of the winter.