chickens, heat and egg production

[Emerald]

Ok, my chickens did well in the heat and have only slowed down to molt, but my first hatch of new pullets have just started laying so I am ok for now- but you can try adding a light on a timer if you haven't already, and also bump up their feed- they need much more protein when they molt to make new feathers, so I buy turkey/game bird starter for them and also give them whole corn and quite a bit of it. An Old timer at the feed store told me years ago to do this and they will go back to laying quite quickly after molting. If you don't want to feed them turkey feed you can also try cheap cat food. But my chickens are from so many different sets of hatches that only a few are molting at any one time.
Our first really cold snap will set them to adding new feathers and that tends to drop the egg count too. But I have three more pullets from the last hatch (had about 12 but a raccoon broke thru the fencing over the brooder and ate most of them! )that will probably start laying in the next few weeks so as long as I get my 9 to 10 a day I can supply family and a few customers steady.

 

[ksalvagno]

My chickens seem to be doing a slow molt so maybe I need to up their feed a bit. Maybe buy some corn or something that would be a bit cheaper than their regular feed. I hate to give up on them quickly but I also can't see feeding birds that aren't producing either.

I do already have a light on a timer. So I'm good there.

 

[me&thegals]

I do already have a light on a timer. So I'm good there.

How many hours of light do you aim for, out of curiosity? Thanks--me&thegals

 

[savingdogs]

I'm interested in this thread because I've had a similar situation. I have hens that are about a year and a half old, mostly BO and RIR. They have been laying like crazy (and I acquired lots of egg customers) up until the heat spell. It seemed to rebound when it cooled off, but still I'm not getting the number of eggs I used to get despite adding seven ducks and I'm getting about six ducks eggs a day. I'm deciding whether to eat some of these chickens before winter hits and my feed bill goes up. Isn't there supposed to be a difference in the color of their combs, pale means they are not laying? Two of my BO have very pale combs. Everyone is done molting.

I think we may have egg-eating going on as well, but my husband thinks he saw a duck doing it.

I've decided to separate my ducks from the chickens for awhile and see if that makes it easier to tell. But at this rate, I need more chickens that lay eggs!
:/

I actually think it is possible I have a goat eating eggs as well because a few of the chickens like to free-range into the goat pen and I've found some egg shells in their barn and the goats seem to like those chickens more than they should!
So I'm hoping some of the ideas here will spark solutions to my own issues.

 

[ksalvagno]

Right now I have a light that comes on at 7pm and goes off at 9:30pm. They are free to roam around the pasture from 8am till whenever I finally get out there and close their coop door. I'm not sure how much daylight they are getting right now but I shoot for 14 hours a day in the winter time.

Up until the heat, these girls were great at laying eggs.

 

[mandieg4]

I'm having the same problem. Out of 38 hens, I'm only getting just about 2 dozen eggs a day, last week I was averaging about a dozen and a half a day, but a few weeks ago I was getting closer to 3 dozen. They are all between 7 and 8 months old. I was thinking about getting a timer, but I'm not sure I know how to make it work. I'm sure part of my problem is hens laying in the pasture somewhere instead of laying in the coop. I have 4 EEs and not one of them has ever laid an egg in the coop. I guess Easter Eggers are an apt name for them, not only do they lay colored eggs, but they hide them too! I've quit letting them out of the coop until around 1pm instead in the morning like I had been and that has helped some, but not as much as I had hoped.

 

[curly_kate]

Same problem here! DH & I have been trying to figure out the problem. Just like everyone else, I thought they would pick back up in the cool weather, but it hasn't happened yet. I don't see any signs of molting yet. I guess I just need to wait it out & hope they pick up again.

 

[ksalvagno]

The timer that I have is just a cheap outdoor one from home depot but it has the option of being able to have the lights come on twice in a day. So when it is darker out, I have the timer come on for a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening.

I guess I have been lucky because my chickens do lay eggs in their nest boxes or at least in the coop. They don't have access to the barn where my goats and alpacas reside. The goats are bad about going out to pasture so they get locked out into pasture everyday which keeps the chickens out of the barn.

 

[miss_thenorth]

I have 9 hens that are approaching thir third winter. when I first got them, they started laying in October, and laid perty near an egg a day all through till next October. I had set lights up on a timer when the days started getting longer. After about a month of that i gave up, since they were barely giving me any eggs.

I now have staggered ages of hens all over the place, and the old gals still lay this summer, but I am not feeding them this winter. I made sure I had others laying, that will continue to lay this winter. I hate t sound like a big meanie, but from now on, my hens only get one winter, and then they get freezer camp. It costs too much to feed them and not get anything from them.

 

[me&thegals]

A few weeks ago, DH and I went into the barn at night with a headlamp and pulled out 11 hens that were suspicious for not laying. They were breeds that we thought were 2.5 years old (I need to do better recordkeeping!!), looked scruffy, had dull combs, etc. Rather than culling immediately, we stuck them in our chicken tractor to work up the garden. They did okay in there and only laid about 1-2 eggs every 1-2 days for 11 hens, so we now are pretty certain they are freeloaders.

Maybe this sort of scenario would help you figure out who's laying or not?

Freshly ground feed usually immediately gets our egg production up.