Winter egg laying

[hollophil]

Boy, I have a different story that the posters here...I have 4 hens, a BR, 2 Buff's and 1 Aracuana. They were laying great up until early December when the temperature dropped one night to -17 faranheit. It has been cold and dry every since. They are in a run with a coop box with a low level red lamp inside (no heat really provided by it). The run is mostly enclosed with a great, clear tarp so they are getting as much as the daylight as is possible this time of year. I am only getting one egg every couple of days now. I feed them laying pellets and give them some scrathc and table scraps and/or oatmeal about every other day. They seem to be moving around fine, and not too stressed out by the weather but I am wondering if I need to supplement their feed with something else to help them cope with the cold temps.

Advice anyone?

 

[Nancy's girls]

Our night temps are single digit lately. The girls free range during the day, get table scraps and have plenty of feed. Their poop has gotten runnier and they have stopped laying eggs. They seem healthy beyond that. I am kind of sad because I actually had to go buy eggs at the store. Is it just the cold that has halted the egg production? I figure they must be burning all of their calories to stay warm. They do have an insulated chicken house that they sleep in (Ironically, they sleep in the coldest area of the house). I hope they are ok. I want more eggs.

 

[felidaet]

Mine started laying in Sep and Oct. Egg production peaked in early Nov with 16 eggs one day from 17 pullets. Then it started slowly dropping. The bottom was early December when I was only getting 6 eggs per day. About 2 - 3 weeks ago the egg laying started increasing. I am now averaging 12 - 13 eggs per day

!

I am not using any artificial light or any heat.

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
You might try getting rid of the red light, and put in a bright daylight type bulb instead, on a timer. Set the timer to turn the light on at around 4 or 5 am. If the coop gets light inside in the daytime, set the timer to turn the light back off sometime after full daylight.

When I had a young flock, they laid eggs all winter with no extra light, after they got through molt, anyway. Now, I have a bunch of older hens, mixed with young hens pullets, and some middle-aged hens. The egg production's been low lately, I added a daylight compact fluorescent bulb in a clamp-lamp (you know, the ones with the reflector). It's only 26 watts, but is the equivalent of at least a 100 watt incandescent bulb. I think it's a little brighter. Any, after 3 days, eggs production started to pick up. It's gone from 2-5 eggs to (the last 3 days) 9, 6, and 5 today. So it's a little soon to tell, the next week or so will tell me something.

 

[Ken H]

I have 4 ISA Browns and 3 Black Australorps

 

[fowlmood]

Ken H I am here in Michigan too. Mine have stopped laying this month but I do not have a light on them, heated or otherwise. If you were to get rid of the light you have yours would probably quite or slow down too. It is the amount of daylight they have, not the actual temperatures that causes them to stop laying. So it's not really a myth that they slow down in the winter, at least without additional lighting. Mine usually start to pick up good again in February and that can be the coldest month of winter for us.

 

[adkchickmama]

Well I would have said slow egg production here. 6-7 eggs a day from 13 hens , however DH found a "nest" under the tarped lawn tractor where my EE's have been laying all the nice blue and green eggs I have been wondering about!

 

[davidb]

cool

 

[gjoyner]

I have three chickens and get 2-3 a day as well!

 

[chicken ridl]

I put 2 heated water bowls in when it started to freeze in the coop.
I track my egg production on a calender. You can almost tell to the day when the heated water went in.
The egg production went up. I change the water in the morning and again at night.
I have 2 red heat lamps on all the time. But they were working before I started the heated water.