too cold for chickens to lay eggs?

Question

hey does anyone have any ideas on how to make chickeeens lay more eggs when temps are 1 degrees 29 chickens only 1 egg a day thanks candie

Answer 1

You need to raise the temp and increase the light that they receive. Remember that the mass producers of eggs has heated buildings and lights on 24/7 For a small folk its not worth it

Answer 2

I have chickens and have been doing this for years and it is well worth it the temperature does not make one bit difference it is the lighting and the food. Chickens need at least 14 hrs. of light per day to maintain laying 1 egg per day. so we will say that where you live the sun rises at 7:30 am and is gone by 5:30 that is 10 hrs. So what I do is put 1 single bulb in the coop 60 watt, (I now use the energy saver bulb alittle more but last longer and cheaper to run, not that it is that much any way)and i use a timer, the light comes on at 4 am and I have it set to go off at 8 am, in case those days are alittle overcast There fore they get their 14 hrs. As for the food I feed them chicken layer in Ontario it is the same cost as cracked corn and does the trick as far as making them do their thing. Hope this helped .............Good luck

Answer 3

Mine scale back laying as temp drops so I hooked up a couple of 100 watt bulbs to a solar timer (clicks on at dusk & I opted for 2 hours, but there are more options) . . . now they get an extra 2 hours of heat & light so there are more eggs BUT not as many as the normal warm weather.

Answer 4

Chickens are originally tropical forest floor birds so very low temperatures are not exactly what they like.
The main thing that regulates their egg laying is the length of daylight, shorter days mean fewer eggs. You can also expect short periods of very low temperatures to reduce the egg output too.
If you want to regulate their egg output, you need to lengthen their day with artificial light and provide them with heating. This is not going to be cost effective with only 29 birds.