Polish Breeders Club

This is the first winter we've had a complete work stoppage with the egg laying.  I haven't made any drastic feed changes, just add a bit of scratch when it gets really cold, the ages of the birds is moot (pullets to 2yo), and overall the weather has been mild.  Doing the light thing also but the ladies are not doing anything!  One group of WCB, WC blue & splash (w/WCB roo) have not laid a single egg in almost 3 months.  Had a late molt going on but everyone is now fully feathered and I would think ready to do their jobs.  No issue of overcrowding either; people who have seen my set up repeatedly say my birds are spoiled to so much area to run.

Is there anything I can do (feed, supplements, etc) to encourage an egg or two?  Really had planned to fire up the incubator this month but at this rate, well, pointless.  My whites and goldens are laying sporatically, maybe 3-5 eggs/week from 6 pullets/hens; buffs (7 of them) give me 2-4/week.  Oh, I've also checked for mites, did worming during molt so I'm out of ideas...

morganschicks at January 5, 2012 at 2:46 PM

This is the first winter we've had a complete work stoppage with the egg laying.  I haven't made any drastic feed changes, just add a bit of scratch when it gets really cold, the ages of the birds is moot (pullets to 2yo), and overall the weather has been mild.  Doing the light thing also but the ladies are not doing anything!  One group of WCB, WC blue & splash (w/WCB roo) have not laid a single egg in almost 3 months.  Had a late molt going on but everyone is now fully feathered and I would think ready to do their jobs.  No issue of overcrowding either; people who have seen my set up repeatedly say my birds are spoiled to so much area to run.

Is there anything I can do (feed, supplements, etc) to encourage an egg or two?  Really had planned to fire up the incubator this month but at this rate, well, pointless.  My whites and goldens are laying sporatically, maybe 3-5 eggs/week from 6 pullets/hens; buffs (7 of them) give me 2-4/week.  Oh, I've also checked for mites, did worming during molt so I'm out of ideas...

What are you doing for light?

Regular light bulbs (75 watt, a couple of them those squirrelly swirlly effecient things), on no later than 530 am.  Usually turn them off by 430 pm because they need some natural light to get in roosting mode; I don't want to just go straight to dark.  Is that wrong?

Well I'll be darned--the WCB group had 1 egg (either from late yesterday or early, early this morning)!  And the buffs have dropped 5 since I posted this thread.  I think that when I have issues I'm just going to post/complain as that seems to do some type of trick!  ha ha

We'll see how long it lasts though as weather is supposed to go downhill again this week (colder).