Topic of the Week - Winter Egg Laying

[Snobulle]

My pullets born this summer haven't started laying yet, but I have one older hen who has just started laying again this week after mothering through the autumn, which surprised me because I didn't expect her to start laying again until early spring. She is an aseel breed, which are known to be poor layers, and I don't add light in the coop. It gets light here at around 9am and dark by 4pm and I think she has actually been laying the eggs in the early evening in the dark. On the other hand it has been quite mild weather this past couple of weeks after more severe cold in November, so maybe that has helped? It rarely goes below freezing here anyway so I'm not really worried about frozen eggs. I've been feeding the girls layer pellets with mealworms as treats for extra protein and they have a few hours a day to roam and eat the grass. They seem happy and healthy enough.

They are poor layers but greet mothers and love sitting one the eggs and also almost all our hens are laying eggs Here in uae abudhabi which is very cold jn the morning and night but a littleheat in the noon we have 9 Chicks hatched from two broody hens one died due to cold so we kept them in the brooder we sometimes keep them outside in the noon and we keep the two mothers together with them full night we have only bulbs we dont have lamps so we only keep It for the brooder and a batch outside shorlegged barred naked neck and others silkie not pure (goscammed )

 

[Snobulle]

All of my older hens have stopped laying completely. We do get one egg each day, light brown, so probably one of the Rocks or Wyandottes. That is the 19 older hens. We also have 15 young pullets that have not started laying yet. They are red sex links and EE's so I do expect them to start in another week or so if the weather improves a bit. We do not supplement light but we do adjust feed to higher protein and things like corn and oats added for warmth.

I wish I had ee amd wyandots

 

[Snobulle]

My Girls were born in June and started surprisingly me with butt fruits in December. Out of 6 Pullets I am collecting almost daily about 6-8 Eggs a day to a day and a half. I need to put in my chicken cams this weekend so I can see who is laying what and maybe provide some uniforms to tell apart who is doing what . Mind you with the mo th January being a majority of sub zero temps (especially with all the wind) it's a race against time to grab eggs before they freeze.
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My 6 Mother old pullet laid an egg it was the smallest egg i ve ever seen from a Chicken it was smaller than A duck egg