For those of you who already have laying hens: What is the average number of eggs the IBC hen will lay per week - summer and winter? Do you give them supplemental light and/or heat in the winter? In my part of Texas, we get a full 10 hours of sunlight at the peak of winter and I doubt I will supplement that artificially when the time comes that I have mature hens - will just let them do what they do naturally but am curious to know what to expect. So far, when the weather is below freezing, I've provided my little 2-month-old flock with a red heat lamp but they don't seem to care for it, regardless of how far I put it from their roosting area. In fact, even when they first hatched, they stayed as far away from the heat as they could get, even after I had reduced the heat bulb all the way down to a regular 60 watt bulb!
Hi Leah, I live in the Mid-Atlantic Region about 70 miles west of Washington D.C. I like to take a more natural approach to my IBs and their egg production; I do not use artificial light to stimulate laying. I would rather let nature take its course. When they are laying in the warmer weather, I find them to be a bit on again/off again, but when they are laying well, I'd say an average hen will produce between 5 and 6 eggs a week. You don't need to provide heat to your birds - remember they are from the cold upper mid-west where wind chill temps can reach ridiculous lows and they thrive in that environment. The best thing to do for laying hens is to insulate your coops and provide at least 6-8 inches of litter on the floor. Also make sure there is ventilation, but no drafts. I know it is tempting to feel sorry for a bird that is out in cold weather, but having the coop too warm cause more trouble than no heat at all, i.e. bacteria, germs, odor, disease. Someone else may have a different approach, but this is mine and it seems to work well in this climate. By the way, we just had wind chills of minus 15-20* and the temperature in some of my insulated coops did not go below 20* which is balmy for an Iowa Blue!
I keep my breeding pens lit with a low watt CFL bulb 12 hours a day because if I didn't it would be pretty dark all the time. I do have a heat lamp suspended a couple feet off the floor in the main coop and the junior coop since I have some non IB girls still finishing molt and some youngsters that need extra support. Normally I wouldn't but it has hit -20 a couple nights lately. I don't see them there much as they prefer to roost, but they will duck under once in a while.
We live in mid Michigan and this has been a harsh winter by Michigan standards. We started a flock of chickens with babies last April. Then we adopted four Iowa blues. All of our birds are in a non insulated plastic type storage barn converted into a coop. The coop is very close to the back of our house and sheltered from the west and northern winds.
We use no lights or heat lamps. I also let nature take it's course as Dan mentioned at this point. So when this bitter cold hit (with actual temps in 10 to -10 range these past two weeks), the birds were all about 9 months at the youngest. They will be a year April and May 2014. Our Iowa's lay about 2-3 eggs a week for each pullet right now and it was every other day in the warmer weather for the three pullets. They are doing great in the snow with our Birchen Iowa girls being the only ones in our flock that actually run out in it. The others all stay in the run. I have a silver cockerel and a silver pullet to start my breeding program this spring. Again, I plan on letting nature take it's course and allowing a broody raise the hatch...that is, if I have a broody girl in my bunch otherwise I will get an incubator
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Thu Jan 09, 2014 10:25 am
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