[Fleecewife]

My Black Rocks moult along with all the others 

[chrismahon]

We have forced our over winter once but the mortality rate is much higher as a result so never again -ours were Pedigrees. Important to give them a complete break from laying for at least two weeks anyway. The lights went on early morning to give them 12 hours daylight in total. Reason its the morning is to give them time to perch naturally at night, not suddenly plunge them into darkness! we found that, although the coop was big enough, the feed and water inside comined with the bedding resulted in a real mess every morning. Our bedding costs went up as did the time spent cleaning them. The whole exercise was declared fruitless and discontinued.


If you want eggs over Winter buy young hybrids in August and sell them in Spring.

[tinwheeler]

thanks all for the advice. How old are young birds to come into lay for winter? - We like rearing them in an incubator so would be useful to have an idea of when to put them in to get winter eggs.

[Victorian Farmer]

The birds that hatched in march are naw laying iff the wether gets very cold its best to leave them as cold eggs are not fertile the cock bird will loose condition fast in the cold wether . The hens are  Wether dependant on condition .Remember it takes a nother month to get full size eggs .

[Mrs Snoodles]

Up until late Spring will give you good winter laying hens. 

However, if you are thinking about wanting good large fowl specimens then the general idea is to hatch sooner rather than later in Spring and to make sure your breeding stock have been well fed over winter (you put them on breeders pellets...extra vit B and riboflavin, good for strong legs).  If you were hatching bantams to a high standard then you would leave until summer as the bird size will be smaller and more true to standard.

[Bumblebear]

We ares still getting seven hens eggs a day from ten hens and three duck eggs from three ducks! I have about forty frozen and groan every time hubby brings more in lol. They just free range and have no lights anywhere.

[doganjo]

Same here, I'm getting 3 to 4 eggs a day from 6 hens.  My new pure legbars are youngsters and only started laying a couple of weeks ago - their eggs are white and smaller than the others.  They are in a brick garage with outside access which I close up at dark, so they only have natural light.  It seems to me there's no hard and fast rule about this.

[tinwheeler]

we're stopped before I put the light on but we are in mid wales on the side of a mountain so it is colder and darker than elsewhere. just a small light for a couple of hours in the morning (following advice above) and back to 1 a day, which will do!