Yesterday was the sixth straight day without a single egg from my hens. That smashes all previous records, and makes me cast an increasingly greedy eye on Landlady’s hens – which still aren’t laying eggs. Yesterday I bought an 18-pack at the grocery store, for the first time in over a year. Why am I feeding hens and also buying eggs?
And yeah Upgrayedd upset things, and yeah the days are shorter and yeah they’re in molt, but for heaven’s sa…
What’s this?
The bald ladies are each growing completely new suits of feathers! They’re clearly not planning to remain bald! And even I know you can’t do that and make eggs, too.
Okay. I’m putting the hatchet down for now.
Part of the problem is that you’ve got so few hens. I went through this about once a year myself, and almost always had a few too many eggs, or not quite enough of them. I use about one dozen eggs a week, so I’d have too many eggs sometimes with three hens, but often not enough with only two of them. And just wait until Landlady’s chickens start to lay. Unless she’s there all the time, you’ll soon be up to your eyeballs in hen’s fruit. 🙂
Can’t wait. She’s got a fridge; the surplus is her problem! 🙂
Are you giving the ladies any extra light, morning and evening? Aside from molting and whatever else might be going on, chickens produce best with very long days.
I know solar limits what you can do. But even a Christmas-tree bulb’s worth of light might be sufficient. Not sure.
No, but I might once they’ve feathered out. It really is remarkable how all of a sudden they’re in full-body pinfeathers, and I’ll cut them some slack until they get through it. But I do have enough capacity in the batteries to run a CFL for at least a few hours in the evenings. They generally come outside early in the mornings, but they roost at dusk.