It is cool and overcast today. After feeding the pigs I finished tilling the free pig pen. I will plant turnips in it tomorrow. I don't anticipate much in the way of fruit-the pig manure being so fresh. But the turnip greens will be large and a delight to the goats.
I also started tilling a new patch of lawn this morning. We had spread pig manure around a 200 or so square foot area of lawn at the beginning of the summer and then fenced it in with chicken wire. (It caused quite the discussion around town. One neighbor we had never met drove up and asked if we were doing an experiment. In fact, we fenced it in because our dogs like to roll in fresh manure.) I will till in some old cow manure, and this will be a major part of our fall garden.
The chickens have all but quit laying (we are getting only 1 egg a day) even though the weather has been cooler this past week. Not only don't we have eggs to sell, we don't have enough for ourselves. One neighbor has suggested withholding food and water for a day to shock them back into laying. Hmmm.
Oremus pro invicem!
4 comments:
Jim
This is a lighting issue not a feed issue. If you stop feeding them for 24 hours they will go to molt.
Put a light in the coop and they will continue to lay.
Jim Dorchak
Jim- two things: The chickens are not confined to a house, they have a large pen open to sunlight, and even for the 24 hours we did not feed laying pellets, they had full access to grass-but perhaps now that you mention it, some of their sunlight (at least in one pen) has been a bit restricted by the over growth on the South side by pig weeds which have taken over an empty pen. We will remove them today. I hadn't thought it the cause, but it very well could be limiting light and causing the reduction.
Thanks.
Jim
I have experienced the same thing you did this very week with my layers. We were getting 3 eggs a week then the younger pullets started laying last week and we got up to 6 or 7, and now this week we are down to 1 egg a day. I put a 60 watt light in the coop (in your case where ever they are roosting) and I am hoping that they will start laying again. I have several books that talk about this in detail. The jist of it is that they need to have 14 hours of daylight a day. It relates (I hypothosize) to their natural tendency to lay like they would in the spring, ie laying fertilized eggs for reproduction. We humans have capitalized on this to have eggs on a regular basis.
Now you will need to turn the light on in the morning not in the evening to lengthen the day. You do not want them going to the roost and then being woke up. This would confuse them, so make the day longer in the morning. You can use a Lamp timer like you would use in a vacant house or when you go on vacantion. I plan on setting mine to turn on at 5 Am each day.
You can leave the light on 24 hours, but this will eventually stress them unduly, since they will not be sleeping like they would normally. 14 hours a day will not hurt them at all, and will give you eggs again. It may take a few days to get them going again, and you may need to confine them once they are on the roost as well. I do not know your set up well enough to advise here. BTW a 40 to 60 watt bulb will be plenty is what I am reading.
Jim Dorchak
Jim-I have had Rhode Island Reds who lay through the summer and well into the fall, an egg a day with no artificial light. I may try something, but in the past the only let up was when winter hit and when we changed feed.
It may be the light, but its a new one on me this early in the year.
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