gotta love production hens!

[lavandulagirl]

So... first cold/short daylight season with these hens, and even with moult being late on the most productive girl (the Black Australorp) I'm getting 3 eggs a day from my 5 chickens. I'm hoping to get through the winter with no store-bought eggs. I know Johno has had some luck with winter laying hens. Anyone else? Not sure what I'm doing to help them do this, and thought it'd be good to compare notes. (Mine are fed organic feed, and daily rations of BOSS. Also, they get table scraps, and at least 4 days a week they get free range time.)

[Alan]

My chickens have never really completely quit laying during the winter, they slow down a bit, but always continue to produce to some extent, I do keep a light on for a short amount of time in the evening, from about 6-9 or so which I'm sure helps. They get craked corn, amaranth, millet, and hulless oats and that's about it, though I did learn last year that if I fed them laying mash they did tend to produce a wee bit better, but in the long run, probably unnecessary, they are also all 100% free range from 7 AM - 6 PM in the winter time.

[flowerpower]

I am not really a big egg eater. So I just store a few dozen for the winter. And I use the duck eggs for any baking, etc. Most people here just get a few new pullets every yr so they lay through the winter. I can't let them out too early in the AM or they will be fox food. Learned that the hard way 2 yrs ago. I give them the option to go in/out all day. But there isn't much to eat once there is snow cover. So I toss scratch grain or birdseed out there to keep them occupied

[Alan]

I'm a pretty big egg eater myself so I try to push them with a little bit of light in winter, funny thing is apparently some of the turkeys believe it is spring at the moment because they too have taken to laying somewhat regularly even though they aren't even a year old yet, I thought about trying to hatch them but the chances of them being fertile at this time of year is slim and I've only seen a couple mate here and there, plus the first 20 or so they lay are usually unfertile.


I hate to do it but I'm going to ditch raising chickens next year, I've just decided that chickens will cause to many issues with the turkeys, the problem is they share many of the same diseases except chickens carry many of those diseases without any signs or effects from it and then pass those on to my turkeys which have become part of the future basis of Bishop's Homegrown (if I sold turkeys this year/had enough to sale to everyone who inquired about them regarding poults, meat, or live full grown birds, I'd have made an extra $3,000).

But the downside is loosing the eggs, which I will make up for, I'm gonna buy a flock of Jumbo Guineas which are the same size as French Guineas but mate naturally and lay year round like chickens, this weekend I'll be converting the old Rion Hobby greenhouse into the new Guinea coop.

[lavandulagirl]

You can't keep a few layers around just for personal egg consumption, huh Alan?

We had (for here) a pretty mega snow fall over the last couple days, and my girls were literally cooped up for 48 hours. They're little troopers, though, and still provided 6 eggs, despite the fact that I have no supplemental light source in their henhouse, and despite a southern-ish facing window, they are sitting in the dark most of the day. Hopefully tomorrow I can let them have some time out. They did get a look at the snow this afternoon, and basically gave me the chicken-language version of "Hell to the NO!" when I invited them to step out. Hopefully I will be able to get some fresh dry straw for the coop in the next couple days... they've made a pretty fierce mess of what's in there, and I'm out.

[flowerpower]

Alan, If you lived closer, I'd trade eggs for a fresh turkey later on in the year. Or feed corn, etc..

There is maybe 3 in of snow cover right now. We are expecting at least another half foot today. I could not even see the ducks yesterday. They were laying in the snow, just kept moving with the sun. I was really happy that I got some new hens this yr. Not so much for the egss, but I wanted more of a mixed flock. The RIR cross started laying. Big beautiful dark brown egg.