Winter Chicken Care: Keeping Hens Healthy & Warm
It starts with a subtle shift. You walk out to the coop in the crisp morning air, coffee in hand, expecting to find the usual bounty in the nesting boxes. But instead of a half-dozen eggs, you find one—or maybe none at all. For many backyard chicken keepers, the winter drop-off in egg production causes unnecessary panic. Is something wrong with the flock? Are they sick? Rest assured, this seasonal slowdown is entirely normal. As winter settles in, your chickens face environmental changes that directly impact their biology. Between the plummeting temperatures and the shrinking daylight hours, their bodies naturally shift into survival mode. In this guide, we will explore exactly why your hens hit the pause button on laying eggs in winter. More importantly, we’ll cover actionable steps you can take—from adjusting their feed to managing coop temperature—to keep “the girls” happy, healthy, and comfortable until spring arrives.
The Science of the Winter Slowdown
Understanding why your chickens stop laying is the first step to helping them. It isn’t a decision they make; it is a biological response to their environment. Two main factors drive this change: light and energy conservation.
The Critical Role of Daylight
Light is the single most important factor in egg production. A hen’s reproductive cycle is stimulated by light entering the eye, which triggers the pituitary gland to release the hormones necessary for egg production. To maintain consistent laying, a hen needs approximately 14 to 16 hours of daylight every single day. As we move deep into winter, daylight hours can shrink to fewer than nine or ten hours depending on your latitude. When the days get this short, the hormonal signal to produce eggs simply shuts off. It is nature’s way of preventing hens from trying to raise chicks during a season when they likely wouldn’t survive.
Energy Conservation and Cold Stress
Chickens are remarkably resilient, wearing down coats year-round. However, staying warm takes work. As the thermometer drops, your chickens burn a significant amount of calories just to maintain their body temperature.
Think of your chicken’s daily calorie intake as a budget. In the summer, “spending” calories on staying warm costs very little, leaving plenty of budget leftover for egg production. In the winter, the “heating bill” skyrockets. Often, a hen simply doesn’t have enough energy left over after keeping herself warm to produce an egg. Her body prioritizes immediate survival over reproduction.
Managing the Molt
If you notice feathers covering the floor of your coop like a pillow explosion, your flock is likely molting. This annual process usually overlaps with late fall and early winter, acting as a double-whammy for egg production.
Molting is the natural shedding of old, worn-out feathers to replace them with fresh, warm plumage for the winter. This process is physically demanding. Feathers are comprised almost entirely of keratin, a protein. Growing a new coat requires a massive amount of protein—protein that would otherwise go into the egg white.
During a molt, a hen’s body cannot support both feather growth and egg laying. She will almost always stop laying until her new feathers are fully grown. This is a healthy, necessary reset for her body. While it can be frustrating to buy eggs at the grocery store when you own chickens, try to view this time as a well-deserved vacation for your hardworking flock.
Practical Tips for Winter Care
While you can’t change the weather, you can alter the environment inside the coop and run. Here is how you can support your flock’s health and potentially encourage laying eggs in winter.
1. Upgrade Their Nutrition
Since your chickens are burning more fuel to stay warm and possibly growing new feathers, their nutritional needs change.
- Switch to High-Protein Feed: Consider moving to a layer feed with higher protein content (18% to 20%). This extra protein helps hens recover from molting faster and provides the fuel they need to generate body heat.
- Smart Supplementation: This is the time to utilize supplements. Adding electrolytes to their water during extreme cold snaps can help with stress.
- The Power of Corn: A handful of scratch grains or cracked corn right before roosting time is an old farmer’s trick that works. As the chickens digest the corn overnight, their digestive systems generate internal body heat, keeping them warmer while they sleep.
2. The Water Strategy
Water is arguably more critical than food in winter. A chicken cannot regulate her body temperature or metabolize her feed properly without access to fresh, liquid water. If your birds are eating dry pellets and their water source is frozen solid, they can become dehydrated surprisingly fast.
You must ensure water stays thawed. Breaking ice out of rubber bowls three times a day is one option, but it is labor-intensive. A better solution is using a heated poultry fount or a heated base for metal waterers. These devices keep water just above freezing, ensuring the flock has access to hydration from dawn until dusk.
3. Lighting the Way
If keeping egg production up is a priority for your family, you will likely need to supplement light to encourage laying eggs in winter.
You don’t need a stadium floodlight; a simple 40-watt bulb on a timer often suffices. The goal is to simulate that 14-hour day. Most keepers find it best to add light in the morning hours rather than the evening.
- Why mornings? If you extend light into the evening and the timer suddenly shuts off at 8:00 PM, your chickens may be stranded on the floor of the coop in pitch darkness, unable to find their roost.
- How to do it: Set your timer to turn the light on at 4:00 AM or 5:00 AM, allowing the sun to set naturally in the evening so the birds can settle in to roost gradually.
4. Heating the Coop: Safety First
This is the most debated topic in chicken keeping. Do chickens need heat? Generally, adult, fully feathered chickens are fine without supplemental heat as long as they are dry and out of the wind. They trap warm air under their feathers, creating a personal insulation barrier.
However, in extreme sub-zero temperatures, you might want to offer help.
- Drafts vs. Ventilation: Do not seal your coop airtight. Humidity is a chicken’s worst enemy in winter. The moisture from their breath and droppings needs to escape, or it will settle on their combs and cause frostbite. You need ventilation high up on the walls, above the chickens’ heads, so moist air exits without a cold draft blowing directly on the birds.
- Heat Sources: If you choose to heat, safety is paramount. Traditional heat lamps are a leading cause of coop fires. They are easily knocked over by flying birds and get hot enough to ignite pine shavings and dust instantly.
- Safer Alternatives: Consider a radiant heat panel. These flat panels mount to the wall and offer gentle heat only near the unit. They are significantly safer than bulbs and use less electricity. They don’t heat the whole coop, but they give the birds a warm spot to stand next to if they get chilled.
A Season of Rest
It is easy to get frustrated when production drops, but try to respect the seasonality of your flock. Winter is a biological rest period. The energy they conserve now by not laying eggs is being used to rejuvenate their bodies, ensuring they remain productive and healthy for years to come rather than burning out early.
As the days begin to lengthen in late winter and early spring, you will notice the red returning to their combs and the chatter returning to the coop. The eggs will come back. Until then, focus on keeping them dry, fed, and watered.
Get Your Winter Supplies at Johnson Feed Company
Your flock gives you breakfast all year long—now it’s time to return the favor. Whether you need to switch to a high-protein feed, grab a safe heater for the coop, or pick up a heated waterer to save yourself from breaking ice, we have you covered.
Visit Johnson Feed Company today. Our staff can walk you through the best supplements and supplies to help your girls sail through the winter comfortably. Let’s make sure your flock is ready for the cold.
