Day 178

When our girls arrived, we knew there would be a period of adjustment. When our flock increased, we did see eggs increase but very minimally.  We knew that with winter coming, the length of natural light available during the day would severely decrease, another major factor in production. While we enjoyed seeing the diversity of our new birds, the initial results made us feel that maybe adding so many birds might not have been the most financially responsible decision. Sure, we love having the birds and being able to experience the different joys they provide, but we didn't necessarily have the discretionary funds to feed and house birds that weren’t paying us back with eggs. The numbers were ever so slowly climbing as the temperatures were ever so slowly dropping.

But oddly, when the flakes started to fly, our mindset shifted quite quickly.

While we were preparing for the eggs to slow down to a crawl, they climbed. Fast.

Averaging about fifteen or eggs a day in fall, our numbers kept increasing while the weather got more wintry. At its height, in the middle of winter strangely, was nearly three dozen eggs a day.

But why? This went against everything we had researched.

We’re no chicken scientists, but we think it was all about timing.

When our new girls arrived, many of them were already in the early stages of  molting. Throw in the fact that they were probably a little stressed over the new move and it was easier to understand while their eggs dropped (or literally didn't drop.)

As they acclimated to their new home while at the same time replacing their feathers, their timing to produce just happened to coincide with winter. So when we were expecting to have fewer and fewer eggs, we had more than we would ever need.

While the molting and moving played a role in their decreased egg production, I think we can take a sizable amount of credit for being somewhat proactive to help our birds adjust to the cold months of a Wisconsin winter and actually increase how many eggs they laid.

We made changes to their living space that were warming, illuminating, and festive.