Where are my Eggs !!!!!!!

How many hours is the light on for?

I have my light on a timer so my BOs get about 14 hours a day. Light turns on at about 3:30 am so they get some extra warmth in the coldest part of the night too.

Ever since I turned it on we get an egg for each of them almost every day.

 

Were they laying before Winter? How old are they? My cochin didn't lay until close to 9 months!

 

How old are the chickens? What is the weather like where you are?

 

We put 2 lamps - on all the time for heat and light - in my coop 8 x6 about 2 weeks ago and switched the feed to a local feed mill layer mash. In a week, my girls doubled their output of eggs. The weather lately has been just terrible up to -40 with windchill, snow & ice, and my girls haven't been able to go outside. My girls are about 9 months old give or take. Hope this helps

 

Do you have a regular bulb in there or is it a red heat lamp?
If it's a white light, how many watts is it for how large a coop?
~Rebecca

 

Im sorry dear but if it was minus forty here, I wouldnt lay an egg either.. id bundle up and hide til spring. whew!~

should be rambling thoughts I guess.. but ive wondered all my life why anyone would live in those conditions.. really why not move?
But I remember visiting my mother in michigan when I was a teen ager, and when it was zero there, something that amazed me, it was not as cold as it is in tennessee at ahhh 20. Truly I could take a walk and not go all to peices trembling and shaking and gasping in the cold as I would have here in Tennessee.
and while Im in here yaking I remember being at disneyland at 100 degrees and i hardly sweated.
Tennessee's 100 degrees is hot trust me its hot. That visit to disneyland I was as comfortable as Id be here at 80.
go figure...

 

When we added light last October, the pullets (Leghorns) started to lay within about a week - they were 25 weeks old at the time. We didn't even go for the full 14 hours - we just turn on the lights when we get up around 5, so at the solstice they probably had about 11 hours of light.

I messed around with an IR light for heat, but it really kept them awake - I could hear them moving around a lot whenever the light was on. Now I've switched over to a 150 W ceramic reptile heat emitter. It gives no light at all, and I think the girls are a lot happier.

 

Quote:Are the older ones molting?

It is very normal for chickens not to lay from late fall through winter. They need time to rejuvinate for spring laying.

Contrary to popular belief the average chicken does not lay every day of the year. Most not bred for production lay 240 - 265 eggs a year. That leaves them lots of down time to rest and repair their bodies.

Remember they are not little machines. Just as your body will take a break from certain functions when over stressed so do chickens.