Bringing Chickens Back Into Lay

We were having a problem with our chickens.  Namely they all stopped laying.  I was getting one measly egg a day from 9 chickens!  This was highly annoying since they still ate as much as usual.  So what I essentially had was some smelly ornamental pets.  I was seriously considering putting them all into the pot rather than keep feeding them.  But first I tried some different ways to bring them back into lay.

First is to put a light in their coop as winter has come.  Chickens lay based on the hours of sunlight they get so by supplement their light in winter you get more eggs.  However this went on for two weeks and nothin.  No change.

I also increased their scratch and scraps in the hopes the extra food would help.  Generally the more food a chicken eats the more it lays.  Still nothing, nada, zip.

That pot was looking better and better.

In a last ditch effort I did something I had read about but never tried.  I gave them Cod Liver Oil in their water.  Fish oil is rich in Vitamin D.  Which is what our bodies make from sunlight.

The next day I had 4 lovely eggs in the box, and every day after that too.  Now we are up to 6 to 8 eggs a day, which is very decent for how old our chickens are and the time of year. 

So lesson learned.  Fish oil works!  Logically it makes sense.  If chickens lay based on the hours of sunlight they get then that could be based on how much vitamin D they are producing sending signals to their brain that it is time to start or stop laying.