Zero Eggs!😫

[ChloeSilkie08]

It’s the time of the year, all of them do this. All 18 of my girls stopped and just now started. Just give them time, it may take a couple months.

Mine too. I just got my first egg 2 days ago in almost a month.

 

[CalBickieMomma]

Yup. Pretty normal (especially if anyone is molting). I live in California on the coast (rarely drops below 30 degrees at night), and some of my girls have stopped (my Polish haven’t laid in months), some are still laying. I went from getting 7-11 eggs a day to 2-5 eggs a day. Once the daylight hours start to increase, they should start laying again.

 

[Tonyroo]

I have 8 birds hatched in april and may that never even started laying! Gonna get rid of those come spring feeding birds thats not laying is a waste of feed

You should consider doing some research of the breed it should give you a time table of when they would lay.

 

[Onyxflock]

I have 8 birds hatched in april and may that never even started laying! Gonna get rid of those come spring feeding birds thats not laying is a waste of feed

I hear you totally! One of my 2 chicks from May just started to lay, so don't give up on them. And poor you, they're maturing in winter when most hens slow down for all the reasons on this post.
They'll get to it soon, be extra patient until the days start getting longer.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I have 8 birds hatched in april and may that never even started laying! Gonna get rid of those come spring feeding birds thats not laying is a waste of feed

Well someone will be happy to take them off your hands, I'm sure, since it'll be prime time for them to start laying come spring.

 

[Offshoreorca]

We have mostly Cochins (which typically aren't thought of as the best layers) in our flock of 20. They often start molting around mid October here in Nova Scotia, Canada. At that point, our egg production drops drastically if there are no new pullets to lay through the winter - this is why I like adding a few new hens every year, but as I have heritage and slow maturing birds, this means that they have to be started early as most don't begin lay until well after 6 months. This year I missed that bus and our pullets only began laying towards the end of December (four

For us production starts ramping up again as soon as the Winter Solstice has passed and continues to increase until about the end of January when we start to get inundated with eggs. Last spring with 11 hens (including the silkie plus our Cochins) we were getting a minimum of 56 eggs per week. I'm already up to eight eggs a day now and climbing. They lay great February through June and then drop off a little for the summer months in the heat (but lay more than enough for everyone) and continue like this until the fall molt.

Our silkie hen is broody most of the summer, but she lays really well in the buffer months which helps us not have to buy eggs. We just cut our egg consumption in the lean months and rely on eggs we have preserved to augment this.

 

[Allthefloofs]

Light is the most likely issue, but also breed choice. Some birds are just better at laying over the winter than others, while some (ahem, polish) stop laying at the first leaf fall (at least our girls do). I remember someplace, maybe Gail Damerow's book on flock keeping, there is a column for chickens that have a tendency to lay over winter. You could also google it and add a few of those girls to your flock at some point. Our super blue has not stopped laying, she is still going strong, an egg a day even when everyone else stopped. We are also in AZ so have a lot more light than you up in NY, so that may not mean much.

 

[aart]

....or have pullets hatched at just the right time.
...or are using lights.

What do you mean? The birds I have right now that stopped laying? If that’s what you mean I’m not sure we purchased them from Hatchery after the fact.

Pullets often, but not always, lay thru their first winter without supplemental lighting.
It can depend on when they were hatched.

I was responding to this post:

People getting normal egg amounts are in the southern regions of U.S.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

We put a light in the hen house the first of December. We had been getting one egg every other day for about six weeks at least. And before that, for a few weeks, maybe two eggs. Out of 24 layers. I'd say production seriously dropped about late September, early October, but I'd have to check my records to be sure. Ten are pullets hatched last March, the rest are a year older. Anyway, I could see this not improving for another month or two at least, so we put the light in, as I say, on or about Dec. 1. It's a heat lamp housing with a regular household bulb. We turn it on about 4 pm and off at 7 pm. This gives them a couple extra hours of light every day, giving them a 12-hour "day." For a couple of weeks nothing changed. Then one day we got two eggs. Gradually we have been getting more eggs. Now, a month later, we are getting 10 or 11 eggs a day. We feel that we just jump-started the winter solstice by about three weeks.

 

[NickyPick]

Completely normal, unless you are providing supplemental light. Hens shut down on the shorter light days of winter. It's good for their longevity, if that matters to you. I have 60+ hens this winter and in the last 4 weeks, we've been in the single digits. I added 7 hens in April, who are pretty much the only ones laying right now, and another 20 hens in September. They'll start laying in March. Basically, if you want winter eggs, get chicks in April/May. They won't be molting in September and will be more likely to lay in the short days of winter as it's their first season. Older hens will shut down, but, for me, I'm fine with that, because it means they will live and lay longer.