Best winter egg-layers

Laying hensUnlike
many homesteaders, I’m not willing to keep a heritage breed if it
doesn’t pull its weight on my farm, so when egg numbers dwindled this
winter, I started pondering the idea of adding a few hybrids back into
the flock.  I know from experience that
Golden Comets
keep plugging along all winter with barely lowered production, and I’ve
read similar reports about other production strains like Red Sex-links
and White Leghorns.

Henderson’s
Chicken Breed Chart

sticks to heirlooms, but puts a snowflake beside species that are
reported to lay well during cold weather.  Their winter egg-layers
include Buckeye, Chantecler, Delaware, Dominique (aka Dominiker),
Faverolle, Jersey Giant, New Hampshire (aka New Hampshire Red),
Orpington, Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island Red, Sussex, and
Wyandotte.  However, if you pay attention to the number of eggs
along
Nest eggswith
the winter-laying habit, you’ll see that only Rhode Island Reds are
prolific layers year-round as well as being good winter layers,
followed up with Delaware, Faverolle, New Hampshire, and Sussex.


Another thing to
consider if your egg production dwindles in cold weather is being more
hard-nosed about age of your hens.  First-year pullets will
usually lay through the winter without a problem, but after that,
heirloom breeds especially are prone to take a long time off after
molting.  So if you want to
have winter eggs and you’re adamant about sticking to heirloom breeds,
your best option might be to raise new layers each spring early enough
that they’ll be in full lay by fall.


Egg laying

To get an idea for the difference between winter-laying ability of one
year old and two year old hens, take a look at the chart to the left,
showing our flock’s average number of eggs per day last winter (blue)
and this winter (purple).  Despite going into the 2011/2012 winter
with only three Australorps who were old enough to really be laying
well, plus three Marans who started a bit late and mostly stopped, we
still had more eggs than this winter with our larger flock of three
mature Australorps, two mature Cuckoo Marans, one Australorp pullet,
and three Rhode Island Reds.  (As a side note, even though
they were sold
to us as first year pullets
, after perusing their combs
Thrifty Chicken Breedsand the way they mostly stopped laying for the winter, I’m pretty sure
those Rhode Island Reds were actually going into their second year when
we bought them.)  All this despite taking care to ensure
our
flock has everything they need to thrive over the winter
.

In the end, I think I’m
going to hedge my bets by adding a few hybrids to our flock, and also
by keeping my layers for only one year rather than two.  While the
shorter life span means we spend more feed getting new birds up and
running each year, it probably evens out once you figure in all the old
hens who take the winter off but keep eating.  Plus, we’ll have
more delicious
stewing
hens
to eat, which
is a very good thing.


 

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