Sneak Peek How To Get Chickens To Lay Eggs In Winter

The winter is coming…

Egg production is grinding to a halt.

So how to get chickens to lay eggs in winter?

Let’s talk about it.

So you don’t have to go running to the store to buy a lot of store-bought eggs ok.

So your hens have stopped laying completely …

Don’t PANIC!

Why Do Chickens Stop Laying Eggs In Winter?

It is actually the short days that are affecting your hen’s egg production and not the cold weather.

Hens actually stop their egg production because there are food shortages, now this can go back to the day dot when their natural instincts come in.

It is telling the hens that they have to conserve their energy to stay warm when there is not much food for them to eat.

And also fewer daylight hours for them to go out and eat.

As chickens know, going out in the dark is not the time for any chicken to be out, there are just too many predators out there roaming around.

That’s why, when wild, they have always gone to roost in the trees to keep safe.
Away from the ground where predators are roaming on the hunt.

Whereas during the spring and summertime you get more light than dark times.

Yes…

It’s all about where the earth is at that time, how close we are to the sun and all that.
But I won’t go into all that as this site is for chickens!

Anyway, during the wintertime, laying hens need to spend 14 hours or more on the roost.

Only 10 or less of those daylight hours are left to them in which to exercise themselves and eat enough feed to take care and fuel their bodies for the long night coming,

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And of course, the supply of sufficient food materials for the production of laying their eggs.

Now, the capacity of a hen’s crop is fairly limited you know…

And during the winter months, the need to fill her crop before going to roost is a necessity to nourish her body during the long hours of darkness ahead.

So with using that food to keep her warm during the long hours of the night, little is in fact left to be manufactured into eggs.

So that is why your egg production is greatly reduced during the winter months.

Chickens Are Light Sensitive

That’s right, chickens are light-sensitive, or you could say photo responsive birds.

And rightfully, they only produce their eggs when the overall conditions are right for successful reproduction.

Even though man has been selectively breeding these birds for hundreds of years, the instinct is still there, and this light-sensitive trait still remains.

So How To Get Chickens To Lay Eggs In Winter

So, I am going to show you what you do to maximize the most amount of eggs out of our hens during those colder winter months.

And this is how to get chickens to lay eggs in winter…

As we know, winter egg production usually slows down when you only have about eight or ten chickens in your chicken coop, which can mean not enough eggs for a family.

But I am going to show you a little way to up the number of eggs you get each day from your girls.

The first two most important things you can do throughout the winter to make sure that egg production keeps up is having a good amount of feed always available to your chickens.

Egg layer feed has the right nutrients that they need throughout the wintertime.

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It is a good idea that you have a no freeze unit in their water bucket and the device is plugged into power and it keeps the water from freezing.

If water freezes and your chickens go without water for any period of time throughout the day they can stop production for that day.

So make sure that the water is never frozen and always available for them.
One of the most important things you can use throughout the winter and that’s adding light.

A chicken egg-laying production slows depending on the amount of light that they are getting throughout the day during the wintertime.

There’s a lot less natural light and so egg production slows down if you want to keep that production going you can add a heat lamp.

Having a heat lamp in your hen house is also a very good idea.

Make sure they are attached snug or tied up high so they are nice and safe and not going to fall into your wood shavings and start a fire.

It is a good idea to have a power strip in your chicken coop, that’s so you can run the water heater and the different lights.

When you add lights to a hen house, it makes a world of difference they do have a clamp on them don’t trust the clamp you can use the clamp, but it is a better idea that they are hanging safely.

So, how to get chickens to lay eggs in winter…

Now your hens have warmth and light.

Food in their coop and plenty of fresh, not frozen water.

They can get on with laying those eggs now that you have made their life easier for them. You can slap yourself on the back for making that effort for your chickens.