[tosca100]

My house hens seem to have decided not to waste their energy laying over winter (or autumn!) and the Shumens have slowed right down and are moulting. If they all stop, do I still feed layers' ration? Or do I give them the local all purpose chicken feed.

Had to buy eggs today, not happy. It's only the beginning of October.....

[JaK]

I know quite a few people here in Devon that change over to feeding wheat during winter months. It is fine to feed when the hens are all off lay. In a lot of feed stores wheat is slightly cheaper than layers pellets too. I can't really do that because my lot are a real mix of ages, some in moult, some in lay and others (hatched this year) that don't lay yet, to make things easy for myself I stick with layers pellets.

[Sassy]

I continues with the layers pellets all year - it is a balanced feed

[ANHBUC]

I also stick with layers all year round.  The only exception is my broodies who eat the chick crumb and then the growers.  I have started taking the broody away from the chicks at around 8 weeks as I have had one start to lay in that time so I put them back with the flock and on layers. 

The last thing you want is a broken egg inside one of your rare breed hens.

[joyfull]

Like the others I too feed layers over winter - my girls started to ease off in September but two of them have started laying again, you can never be sure of when they will start again.

[tosca100]

Layers it is then.Thanks everyone.