Janet wrote:

>
> Lucky you: my girls (16 of them) are only producing about 2 eggs per day
> since their molt in the fall. I was getting more like 6-9 a day. (This was
> with an original flock of 12--one killed when run over by the neighbor's
> tractor--augmented the next year by a second flock of 8--one killed by my
> dog who chased her and picked her up, one killed by an unknown predator, and
> one horrible accidental rooster that I finally had someone come and take
> away.)
>

Heh. We started out with 21 chicks - a mongoose got 7 of them... Our
older hens went off laying in winter too - which I gather is where you
are at the moment. The locals around here and the poultry discussion
groups I read say that hens need a minimum of 14 hours of daylight (and
must be kept quite warm) to keep laying in the colder months, and this
can be gotten around when the shorter days set in by putting in
lighting/heating in their coops... Have you done that? We don't bother
here (South Africa), as our climate is fairly warm most of the year and
our winters fairly short. So I just let them "have a rest" for a month
or two...

I hear ya about the rooster - got rid of ours too, he was a "monster"
with sharp talons - ask me I know. The little bastid would "attack" me
when I went to feed them... I have scars to prove it

> I was selling about 4 dozen per week to friends for $2/dozen (extremely
> cheap for free-range eggs), but now we've actually had to buy eggs
> occasionally for the first time in 3 years!

Yes, that's cheap. "Free-range" eggs are expensive in our stores too.

--
Cheers
Chatty Cathy

Garlic: the element without which life as we know it would be impossible