[teresac]

My 18 chickens are not laying we have had about 5 eggs over the last three weeks, is there anything I can do?

[muntjac]

wait till the days get longer now ,you may still get the odd egg but they need a min 14 hours or so daylight to make eggs    

[teresac]

They were laying last winter fine!!!

[muntjac]

so they are older birds    the age thing creeps up on us all .,    have you changed thier diet at all .. what are you feeding them ?

[Aunt Sally]

Hens often lay well through their first winter  

Make sure they get as much natural light as possible.

[Foxy]

Hi

How old are they? Have they gone through or are they moulting? That will drastically reduce egg production coupled with the shorter days. But it is good for them to have a bit of a break from laying.  

[pushrod]

If you've got electricity to the hen house i believe putting the light on in the middle of the night for a relatively short time can break up the long night and so fool them into laying. (you don't end up with more eggs this way - they are just more uniformly spread over the year). I'm always amazed by the way my birds are always able to sense the lengthening day and start to lay again usually within the first week of January.

[teresac]

Some are ex battery from last year and some from this year, same diet nothing has been changed!!!!

[pushrod]

A year older?
Battery hens are conditioned to lay throughout the year by controlled lighting. Maybe you were lucky because the conditioning had not worn off.
I've kept a variety of hens and almost never get eggs October thru December, but they always start again in January