I mentioned in a recent post that our 18 hens were only laying 1-2 eggs/days, and I blamed the lack of daylight. I had read that hens need 14-17 hours of light for optimum laying.
Well, less than a week after I finally installed a light in the chicken house, their egg production more than doubled to a whopping 4 eggs per day! Maybe it’s not quite that exciting, but it’s definitely an improvement and it costs us very little since I used a fluorescent bulb . If we tried, we could probably get by on that without buying eggs from the store, though I don’t think we’ll want to do that. We do tend to eat a lot of eggs and even store-bought ones are an inexpensive source of protein.
We’re hoping production will continue to rise a bit, but we don’t have mature hens (they’re less than a year old) and we don’t have the very best laying varieties either. We did get a new sort of egg yesterday – brown with tiny green specks all over it – and it was the 5th egg of the day! We don’t expect to get more than 6/day until the spring.
That’s fine, because after the initial investment they’re costing us very little. They live on our scraps, our land, and a bag of laying pellets every 3 or 4 weeks – that’s all they want, because there are so many scraps. And some of the breeds we chose do tend to be broody, so we’re hoping they will hatch out future generations for us, which means little to no investment in new stock for years to come.
Now if we could just convince them to hang out somewhere other than right under the house. The cooler weather has discouraged the flies now but they were awful during the summer! That’s the downside to our friendly hens. They want to be near us. Some even come up on the deck to join us, but we shoo them away. One used to jump into the van whenever the children got in. Silly chickens.
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my husband had a pet chicken when he was a kid
Do you also have a rooster? I am guessing you must since you are hoping your broody hens will increase your flock.
So all 18 hens are laying a total of 4 eggs/day? So most are not laying yet? I have so much to learn
At 1 egg per day I don’t know that it would be worth the bother to have chickens (Since I already have a good source of Hormone free eggs and cheap too), since we easily eat 5-6 eggs for breakfast alone, forget when I get into a baking mode. I buy 3 doz eggs a week and in 6 doz in the winter when I bake.
Ours cut back to just 1-2 a day a month or two ago. We realized that we weren’t really being diligent about the length of light we were supplementing and decided to put it on a timer. Now we’re back up to 6-7 out of 9 hens. It took several weeks to get here though.
The good news is the days start getting longer in a month!
Tree,
The very best breeds of laying hens can lay 1 egg nearly every day. Most lay about one every other day. Young hens – pullets – often lay just one every third day. I think that’s what ours are doing now.
During the shorter days of winter many hens will stop laying altogether unless you provide extra light for them.
Our chickens do the same thing. The like to live on our porch. The even lay eggs there. It is quite handy to have the eggs right outside the door. But trying to keep the porch clean is not fun. We have chased many a chicken out of our van, too.
Last April we got some rhode island red chicks (good for laying) that started laying in September. We are getting one egg per day from each of them now, though it did take them awhile to get their hormones straight. We were getting tiny, gigantic, non formed, etc. for awhile. Anyway, if you decide to add to your flock, you should definitely get some rhode island reds if you want more eggs. We kept ours in the pen for a little while, but then started to let them free range. We leave the door open to the pen open during the day and they automatically go back in at night and also lay in the nesting boxes. They stay pretty close to the house as well. We live in the country and have only lost one to coyotes.
When a hen is broody, and setting on eggs, ALL hens will stop laying. You need the broody ones out of sight of the others. Just wanted to warn you of that so that you can start thinking of where they will be.
I had 3 baby chicks once. My father found them abandoned in a plastic bag. But they all died before their adult feathers started coming in. The only thing i can deduct is that they had Marek’s Disease, the nerve kind. They became paralyzed and died. I would like chickens again someday.
I have to second the timer
They need about 12-14 hours of light to lay. Having the light on all night disturbs their sleep, and if you set the timer to stay on into the night, they may not come into their coop before dark. We’ve found having the light come on early in the AM works best for us. The birds fall asleep naturally and are just woken a bit early.
As for broody hens disturbing laying…I haven’t had any problems with this. We have a little silky who goes broody often and she will even share a nest box with another Mama.
Good luck with your chicken adventure!
I have 8 hens and your right they do need alot of light, we use a drop light and a regular bulb and I plug it in at dark and unplug it in the mornings, and we get anywhere from 5 to 7 eggs a day. Hope the tip works
Do they need to eat more laying pellets? I don’t know alot about chickens but we had about 19 hens at one time several years ago and they ate mostly laying pellets with some yard scavenging and we would get over a dozen eggs a day. Just a thought??
Along with the drop light mine will free range all day and get feed once a day and I switch food to Layena by Purina Mills And they started laying big beautiful eggs, and if the light is not on at night they will keep making so noise until I turn it on than they go to sleep, it`s like they are scared of the dark.I got to thinking mine didn`t lay much either until I did the light and switch the food and let them stay out longer.