With the fall equinox behind us the days are noticeably getting shorter. A month ago, I was shutting the chickens in at 8. Now, they’re in by 7:15. By the time we “fall back”, they’ll be in by the time I get off of work and home, so when I’m in for the day, I’m in. This means that egg production begins to taper.
Chickens (and all birds really) need 12-14 hours of light a day to stimulate egg production. Many poultry keepers use lights on a timer to extend the “daylight” hours and keep up production. However, I prefer to let my flock have a natural rest. So the egg production will slow until it stops completely for hopefully not that long before it picks back up again.
In the meantime, I’ve frozen eggs to get us through and worst case scenario, there’s always the grocery store…
