Winter Eggs

When I first started keeping chickens, I figured winter would be a problem for me.  Everything I had read said if you don't provide extra light (chickens need about 14 hours a day), they will slow down and probably stop laying for the winter.  My coops do not have electricity, so extra lighting is not an option.  Besides, who am I to fight nature?  It is natural for them to have a break in the winter- after all it is not a good time to hatch chicks (the obvious main reason a chicken lays eggs).

So, my first winter I kept waiting for egg production to continually drop.  I did notice my older hens did slow down, but would still lay an occasional egg (their eggs are bigger than pullet eggs).  However, my pullets continued to lay right through winter.  I kept searching for information on this and couldn't find much.  Finally in an issue of Backyard Poultry someone wrote in about their chickens and asked about their pullets- would they continue to lay through their first winter.  The response was that they very well could! 

This is my trick to continue to have a steady supply of eggs during the winter- I continue to have pullets who start laying in the fall and they continue through the darker winter months.