Many people do not know that chickens lay eggs according to the number of daylight hours. The shorter the days, the fewer the eggs, until they stop altogether and rest during the Winter. This is a time for them to rebuild the calcium in their bones that gets robbed to produce eggshells.
Commercial farmers add lighting to their coops to fool the hens into thinking that it is still time to lay eggs. They need the eggs to offset the cost of their chickens feed. I’m not trying to make this a commercial venture, so I give my girls a rest during the dark, cold months.
During this time I have to buy eggs and try not to think of my girls as a bunch of freeloaders. It gets hard right around Christmas when I’m baking trays and trays of cookies and going through cartons of store-bought eggs. I don’t know if the chickens tune in to my grumblings or if they are just feeling well-rested and generous, but every year right around the Winter solstice during the darkest time, they lay a few eggs for me. We were away and weren’t checking in the nest box, so when we got back we found this..
Thanks girls. Enjoy your Winter break.
