Brown ISA’s first year laying but stopped in winter?

[Samuelwagner]

Hello! First year owning chickens. Long story so bare with me! We built them a reasonable sized coop and run ourselves, a couple small wooden perches, and underneath the coop itself we put an old dog house to shade them in the summer heat. We only have 2 brown ISA’s that we got when they were chicks and at 10 weeks let them stay in the coop. (Planning on getting 6 more this spring) they started laying in October and consistently layed up until 2 weeks ago. I’ve heard first year layers will lay even in colder months, and where we’re at in North Idaho it’s sometimes 0 degrees overnight. We do have a red light in the coop that stays on for 4 extra hours after sundown. We did have a mice problem getting into their feed, but we eradicated that with traps, and they always have plenty of water and food (layer pellets). Occasional snacks even and oyster shells. We semi-regularly let them out of the coop to run around in the backyard but I don’t see any random eggs in the yard. Why did they stop laying and will they start again this spring?

 

[AinaWGSD]

Could be the cold. I'm farther south than you (usda gardening zone 6A) and my girls were laying great up until the last 2 weeks. Went from 4 eggs a day to 3, then this week it's been 1-2. They should start up again when the weather is less stressful

 

[Cheekychook12]

It’s pretty common for birds to stop laying over winter, I think production breeds are more likely to continue laying but again they might not

 

[Cheekychook12]

It’s pretty common for birds to stop laying over winter, I think production breeds are more likely to continue laying but again they might not

Mine stopped laying in summer but they are a show breed that lays less anyway