Happens every winter with mature hens. They moult, drop their feathers and grow new ones, and almost entirely stop laying eggs. I expected it, predicted it, try not to be bothered by it.
What does bother me is that six months ago I was bitching about my superabundance of eggs but never got around to experimenting with long-term storage. Now I’m buying eggs.
The store price of eggs has crashed since we started raising chickens, at least around here, so it’s not like it’s a big deal. It’s just ironic in a bad way, that first time when ol’ Chicken Farmer Joel has to buy a carton of eggs.
IIRC, According to Lisa at SurvivalMom.com, eggs can last 6 months at normal temperatures if you just rub them with a fine coat of mineral oil then store them in a carton
The successful farmer isn’t the farmer who never sees lean years; its the one who sets aside from abundance in anticipation of the lean.
Nobody here gets eggs in the winter from their own hens, of course. Few people even try to overwinter them. But egg prices have always been very reasonable until lately. I just bought two dozen “large” for $2.50 each. But I remember a few times in California when they were more expensive than that, so who knows?
I wouldn’t call it a chicken farmer fail, when trying to remember all the minutiae there will always be things that slip through the cracks.
BTW UH1H CE was right on the money. A light spray of oil will keep the eggs fresher longer in the same way the coating a hen leaves on the eggs she lays keeps the egg viable until it hatches.
If you have access to a fridge you can overwinter a few dozen egg. That’s how I handled the molt each year. Yeah, the whites get a little runny, but it’s better than no eggs or buying them. It is my understanding the whites get a little runny when you mineral oil them, too. They say the float test is a myth but I have used it with good results. The best insurance is cracking eggs in a separate bowl so you don’t get any ugly surprises.
Bear with me now. I’ve never loved or raised a chicken. I was just thinking that around the time the chickens are molting, and coincidentally you have to get up on a cold morning to feed/water them. Seems to me to be around the same time that coyotes are getting really hungry. I would think a few coyote hides would not only pay for your winter eggs but also buy you a whole new flock(?) of hens in the spring?
Oh, the problem with new generations isn’t the cost of the replacements. Chicks are cheap. The problem is that pullets take most of a year to mature to the point of laying eggs. I should get another productive year or two out of these, but I’ll be looking to start their replacements in Spring or early Summer just so the generations can dovetail and there’s no eight-month period where all the chickens are eating but not laying. So unless you’ve got a big enough operation that you’re starting new birds every year, which would be quite a bother when the only objective is a couple of dozen eggs a week, you’re going to run into these molting periods where you just need to grin and bear it.
Having said that, it’s interesting that the four hens at the Fortress of Attitude aren’t molting as severely as the ones at Landlady’s place and they’re still laying – not well, but somewhat. I’m guessing as to why that is, but my guess is that those four hens developed the habit of sleeping on top of their coop instead of in it. They’re subjected to quite a lot more cold than the ones at Landlady’s, and while they are molting somewhat they didn’t just drop half their feathers at once the way the larger flock did.