Our family uses an average of eight eggs a day and we sell about four dozen a week. We get all of these eggs from about 30 chickens. Each winter day we are getting what we usually get in the summer time, around 17-22 eggs a day.
How do we get our chickens to continue to lay eggs all year long?
Reason #1
We give them more food since there are a lot less bugs and grass for them to eat. We have feeders for them so they can just peck at their food all day instead of only one feeding.
Reason #2.
We have a light in their coop that comes on every morning at 3am. since chickens need around 15 hours of daylight a day and since they are only getting about 11 1/2-12 hours a day we had to give them some extra daylight.
Reason #3.
We keep clean nest boxes for them to lay eggs in. Keeping the nest boxes clean also helps keeps the eggs from getting dirty or broken.
Reason #4. We raise good laying breeds. We currently are raising Jersey Giants, and Rhode Island Reds which are good for laying in the summer and winter.
Jersey Giants
Rhode Island Red.
Each nest box has around 2-5 eggs in it and only about five nest boxes have eggs in them. We also keep a couple golf balls in some of the nest boxes to encourage the chickens to lay in them and not on the ground.
Full basket of eggs ready to be cleaned and put into cartons.
Thanks for upvoting and if you have any questions I will do my best to answer them.
