We finally got an EGG!!!

[themartianchick]

Okay, I probably shouldn't be acting as though it is our first one, but our Black Copper Marans haven't laid an egg since September and the Ameracaunas quit laying about two months ago. We completely ran out of eggs right around Thanksgiving and have seen no laying activity out of our girls since thy finished their molt. I finally gave in to an old wives tale and fed them some crushed red pepper on their treats yesterday. Today, I found two Marans eggs!! One was broken but I carried the other one into the house as though it was some kind of precious cargo! It is now on display on the kitchen counter. Hopefully this is the signal that things will be getting back to normal around here.

[Lynnee]

Congratulations! Now, please elaborate on the crushed red peppers. Thanks!

[MrsMoose]

As a hope-to-be-chicken-farmeresse next Spring, I would also like to learn more about this "trick".

[Dee]

First egg or not it's always a nice surprise when they start laying again. I'd be leaving mine on the counter to admire too BUT I only have 3 hens left and none have layed for a long time.

[Lynnee]

One of the things we learned when we had chickens was that they need a certain number of hours of daylight in order to lay. Therefore, in the winter, they always had a lightbulb near the roof of their house, and we had eggs all year round.

[themartianchick]

Shhhhh.... Here is the big egg-laying secret as told in a long, drawn out story form!

 

When I was young, I was raised in the country. Some folks had chickens, but most folks in our village bought eggs from the "EggLady".

I overheard a conversation between the EggLady and my babysitter one day. She said that she wasn't sure if she'd be able to bring her 2 dozen eggs the following week. The reason was that the hens had slowed down their laying due to a moult. (Of course, I thought that she'd said a MOLD!)

 

She mentioned that she hoped to get them back on track by feeding them some crushed red pepper. My babysitter asked if the eggs would taste funny as a result and the EggLady said that they wouldn't.

 

At home, we always bought eggs from the store because our silkies and guineas didn't lay too well and no one was at home to receive eggs from the EggLady during the day. I told my mother about the crushed red pepper to make them lay but she never bought any.

 

I think that she really didn't want to be bothered with having to gather eggs everyday. The poultry were basically pets on our little hobby farm and we really didn't know much about raising them. Our birds were penned up...We didn't realize that a diet of corn and the weeds that I gathered for them in the evenings or on weekends would cause them to be lacking in the nutrition to lay eggs regularly.

 

Once my parents got rid of what was left of the aging poultry stock, I never had an opportunity to try out some of the stuff that I had learned from library books or from farmers in the area.

 

Several years ago, I was working on a farm business plan. I had an opportunity to speak with a Cornell professor about certain components of my business plan. What I didn't know was that Bob Baker was THE pre-eminent poultry scientist. He was really down to earth. So I asked the question about red crushed pepper and he said that it depended upon whether or not the chickens liked spicy foods!! Neither proving nor disproving the theory.

 

A few years ago, I went to work for a chicken hatchery, telecommuting from home. I was hired because I actually had a lot of poultry knowledge. I just didn't have a lot of practical experience after the age of 18. I spent the next two years answering chicken-related questions on a hotline. During that time, a lot of callers actually asked if crushed red pepper would rev a chicken up and get them to return to laying after a moult. They all claimed to have heard it from farmers. I still wasn't sure if it was true.

 

One of my virtual co-workers claimed that it was true but she always liked to tease me because I lived in the city, so I wasn't sure if she was serious or not.

 

Last spring, I decided to hatch out some quail and then some chickens of my own. My 9 chicken hens started laying last November. The sheer number of eggs was overwhelming! Although I was expecting the birds to moult this fall, I wasn't prepared to not have home grown eggs. First the Marans stopped laying and then the Ameracaunas slowed and eventually stopped. They all got their feathers back quickly and then they still wouldn't lay.

 

Although, I am familiar with giving birds more light in the winter, that is not a viable option for me right now. Our barn does not have electricity and I really don't want to run an outdoor extension cord to the building. One other factor to consider is that adding light can shorten the longevity of egglaying that a chicken has. The winter break is actually good for their bodies and gives them a chance to re-charge. For BC Marans, it gives a color boost to their eggs, making them extra dark again.

 

ANYWAY... The big chicken laying secret is quite simple. You add a lot of crushed red pepper to the feed. Chickens don't have the sort of spicy-heat receptors that humans have, so crushed red pepper tastes just like green peppers to them. I know that this is not scientific proof, but I gave my chicken girls crushed red pepper sprinkled on their treat food (to ensure that they would eat it). The next day we got two eggs. Soooo...in my mind , IT WORKS!!!