Changing Light hens update

My hennies are slowing down on laying eggs these past couple of weeks. We got nothing from them yesterday and the day before, but did get one Australorp egg today, finally. I used up all my eggs on Saturday as well, and knew in advance that we would have none, and so we did get two dozen from the place we can get some from a farm that doesn’t coat the eggs in oil, at least, though they are refrigerated. They are brown and sometimes a green one or two in a dozen, so at least they look like our home grown eggs mostly. 🙂

Because of the drop in production and the season getting shorter already –I got the light working in the A-frame for the Australorps yesterday afternoon. I have an outdoor digital timer and set it to go on at 6pm and go off at 10pm every day of the week/weekend (7 days a week, in other words.)

I have another light to get out to the superyard, and between that one and the A-frame light the two hennies in the middle in individual fake pens should get enough light.

The Bantam hasn’t laid in a couple or more weeks. Hawklady last laid on the 26-or-so of September, with few and far between before that for the last couple of weeks, and none since, of course, since she last laid in September on that day mentioned. The Wyandottes haven’t laid anything in weeks and weeks. Pointsettia is molting and looks skinny and featherless on her head and slim feathers elsewhere, practically no tail. Her feathers are starting to come in again though. She’s been like this for a long time, dropping a plethora of feathers week before last and into last week. Slight dropping for a month before that, I think it was. Trinity is not dropping feathers, but isn’t laying either, she laid eggs for awhile after Poinsettia stopped to molt, but it’s been quite awhile since anything has come out of their pen.

The Australorps were doing very well until two weeks before now, when they dropped a few eggs in laying numbers. Then the next full week (Tue. through Mon.) they laid several in numbers less, and then this last full week ending today, they laid very few. This was their 17th week since I got them back and they had been troopers superb up until the end of September. It’ll be interesting to see what they do in the next couple of weeks with the additional light now. I’ll definitely let them start to molt if they wish to anytime between now and December, especially if the Wyandottes get back online, but it’s not obvious that Trinity will be available for egg laying since she hasn’t dropped any feathers, but hasn’t laid either. I hope Hawklady will start laying again, I’d hate to see her molt so soon, just a short time since she feathered out after her ordeals this Summer (comparitively.) I don’t know if the hens have an actual predetermined molt cycle that takes place at it’s set time even if a stress-situation forced a molt, which is my query about Hawklady.

It’s October now, and it’s Autumn as well. The weather has been very nice usually, of late, not as hot, some days, like yesterday and today hotter than the usual days of late, but not as hot as summer, not humid really, either. We’ve had some good rain the past week too. The Autumn Flame Maples are starting to turn red, and I hope they’ll be gorgeous enough for photos, not drop their leaves too much before full tilt red (like they’ve done in the past.) Then it’ll be the October Glory Maple’s turn, it turns later. Other trees then too. Peak is more like early November in northern Ga, but some things go earlier than later, and all in all it does depend on weather, of course.