We have 20+ chickens… We went from getting three dozen within a couple days…& having to sell them bc we couldn’t keep up… To getting zero eggs!!! It has nothing to do with the weather here in Arkansas. My chickens have always laid eggs year-round. They have never once not consistently laid eggs. It has everything to do with tractor supply feed..We recently switched to a co-op feed… Just waiting for it to fix the problem.
It's not unusual for pullets to lay through winter their first year but not the winter after. It's indeed not due to the weather but to the reduced daylight hours. As long as they are getting adequate nutrition it's nothing to do with diet.
That’s not true at all. Look up all the complaints about tractor supply feed. They have basically put birth control in the feed. It does not matter about the weather or the hours… I have raised egg birds as well as processed close to 200 meat birds. No one goes from having 3 dozen eggs to zero eggs.
Daylight hours do matter. I was getting between 5-7 eggs a day during summer and went down to 1 a day as winter hit. Now that days are lengthening, I'm getting 1-3 a day and the others should be starting again soon. I've made zero changes to their diet, they've been eating the same feed they have been since they were 3 1/2 weeks old. I get my food from chewy but that's simply because my local tractor supply sells the feed I want at a higher price than chewy. if they had 20% all flock at a lower price than chewy I'd get it from there if for no other reason than to get my points, but their 20% all flock is more expensive by a few bucks so chewy it is. If the winter drop in production is an issue you can add supplementary light, I don't do this personally as I'd rather my girls take a break when needed, but many people do and they've had good success with it. Of course this won't help if they are also molting at the same time (which also happens around fall and winter and also makes birds stop laying) but it should help once they're past that
