Sunday, December 16, 2018

Hens in the Winter

I was told the girls would produce less eggs in the winter when it is cold and dark. 

We are THERE now. The sun rose at 10:13 a.m.  and set at 3:30 p.m.  We try to keep space around the coop shoveled and put shavings down so they can come out - but they've not been out in a few days.  They have, however, continued to lay 13 - 16 eggs a day. I have 16 hens. I sold 38 dozen eggs in November, and had plenty of eggs for our personal use as well. 

One day last week most of the eggs were cracked like this. It was a cold day.  The next day I picked up quite a few eggs in the morning that were fine. At night one was cracked. Still it wasn't until today, when Michael commented that he'd talked to a gal in church about frozen eggs, that I realized the cracking was because they'd all frozen.  I guess I need to get eggs more than twice a day when it's this cold. 

Do any of you have any other tips for preventing frozen eggs in the winter? I gave them to Yuuki. Michael said Krista says she thaws them and uses them.