What chicken breeds require the least daylight length for laying?

I'm live in an area with shorter daylight hours.  It's so wacky to video call family in Oregon on summer evenings, and have it still be light up there!

Our shortest day is about 10 hours.  The longest in summer is a little over 14 hours. We are in an area where you plant short day onions.

Here's the day length calculator I use: Solar Topo daylength calculator for any location on Earth

Does anyone know what chickens breeds keep laying, naturally, in the shorter day lengths? I have combed the internet for this info, and not found any good answers.  I've also searched for what breeds lay best in Hawaii, or near the Equator,  "equatorial chicken breeds"  - I have changed up the search terms over and over to no avail.

I have found commercial chicken website and instructions for raising chickens commercially in the equatorial regions - and they seem to use lights.  They have a lot of the same hybrids sold commercially in other areas.

But is seems to me that homesteading people raise chickens everywhere, and there must be breeds that lay better in short day areas. Someone out there knows the answer! Calling all Permies....

I have read that the Icelandic Chicken is quite a good winter layer when there is not much light, but haven't tested it.

The common hybrids are laying well with 12 hours of daylight which you have to the equator. Do you have troubles with your chickens laying not enough?

If some of your chickens are laying in the short days, you can incubate those eggs, and will therefore develop a strain of chickens especially adapted to the short days.

Don't areas near the equator have more sunlight in the winter?  In winter here in WI, we get less than 9 hours of sunlight a day in the shortest days of winter.

With regards to the breeds that keep laying, I will know more in spring.  I'm trying some new breeds this year.  In the past, if I recall correctly, my naked necks did pretty well in the winter.  It's hard to tell with my other chickens because after the first year, I had a bunch of mixed breeds so I don't know who was laying what.

I can't answer your question.

We have always kept a light on in the hen house at night during cold weather.

We also have always raised Rhode Island Reds.

They are easy to raise and adapt well to both heat and cold.

Plus the lay big brown eggs.

Young chickens of any breed will lay when they are at the age to start no matter the day length. If they hatch in the spring, most common layer or dual purpose breeds will start laying around 6 months in the fall, and lay fairly well until the next fall when they molt. Commercial breeds will lay well in short days, they tend to just lay no matter what, make sure their nutrition is up to par, they can make themselves sick by laying too much if nutrition is wrong. Heritage breeds will slow down laying if their nutrition is off to compensate.

A friend out here likes the naked necks as well.  

I'm at a latitude in New Mexico where the shortest day is about 10 hours.  The longest in summer is a little over 14 hours. We are in an area where you plant short day onions.

Here's the day length calculator I use: Solar Topo daylength calculator for any location on Earth

Online in many places it says chickens need at least 12 hours of light to lay, some as much as 14 hours.  But I finally found a website that listed a few that lay longer in the temperate regions - mostly the fluffier breeds, supposedly.  Chickens and More: Keeping Chickens Laying During Winter: The Beginner’s Guide

They list wyandottes, brahma, chanteclers, buckeye and the New Hampshire reds as breeds that lay through the winter. I'm not as interested in the bigger breeds.

This next site explains it better than most I've found so far, and lists cold stress as one of the factors that stops a hen from laying. We live in a place that gets very hot, and also has freezing winters.

Good article: Grubbly Farms: Why Chickens Stop Laying Eggs in Winter

When a hen experiences cold stress, she needs to use more energy to stay warm instead of making eggs. The level at which cold stress causes a hen to stop laying will depend on her age, her breed, how much she has been able to acclimate to the weather, and her overall health. Older hens are more sensitive to cold stress than younger hens. They will stop laying due to cold weather sooner than pullets. Chicken breeds that are cold hardy will not experience the effects of cold stress as quickly as chicken breeds who are not cold hardy. Cold hardy chicken breeds will lay better during cold weather.  

So one issue might be our big temp swings that may also play a factor.  It might be 75 in the day, then drop into the 20s or 30s at night.  

This does make me think the suggestion of the Icelandic chickens is a good one.  I might try those in the future.  The other one I'm interested in is a newer US breed, the Whiting True Blue.  A friend here has a small flock of them and they are very mellow, heat tolerant, and super attractive.  They come in a whole variety of colors, black, blue, white tan, and color patterns of all sorts. Some have puffy cheek feathers like mutton-chops, not sure what that's called.

They were bred by Tom Whiting, a poultry breeder who specializes in breeding chickens for feathers - for fly fishing ties, specifically. He decided to breed two types of chickens for egg production - one for all blue eggs and one for all green eggs.  Hence the Whiting True Blue and the Whiting True Green.  The Whiting True Green look basically like Rhode Island Reds, but lay olive-colored eggs.

They look like this, but can have a wider assortment of colors.  My friend's have more blue-greys and duckwings, for example.


These are the places I've seen selling them.  They were first sold only by McMurray, I believe:

Dragonfly Farm: Whiting True Blue Chickens


Hilltop Farms: Whiting True Blue chicks

Sugar Feather Farm: Whiting True Blue chicks or eggs

McMurray Hatchery: Whiting True Blue chicks


So if I can't find chickens that can naturally keep laying long as I'd like,finding a good egg storage method I like is the next most obvious option. I liked this article about storing eggs; it included a couple methods I've never heard of including thermostabilizing eggs.

Grubbly Farms: Storing and Preserving Chicken Eggs

Most information you will find on chickens will be about keeping them laying in the winter when our northern nights are long and cold.  

I am surprised that you are having problems with your birds not laying during your winter.  If you think temperature swings are part of the problem make a well insulated coop and see if that helps.  If it was me I would see what breeds were developed at about the same latitude as you and try them if you are already replacing birds.

One of the biggest things to keep chicken laying in winter isn't light but nutrition. Feed them well, plenty of protein and calcium and they will lay in the winter.

Here is a good video on things too feed your chickens to get eggs all winter, from Becky's Homestead

Another good video is this one

The hens I've noticed that keep laying are the hybrids I hatch out, but other than that some other fairly good ones are Saphire Gems, Easter Egger, Norwegian Jearhon, Black Australorp, and Whiting True Green. You could also look into the breeds that were developed in colder climates with less light such as the Buckeye, Barnvelder, Swedish Hen, Icelandic, Swedish Flower Hen, Hedemora, and Basque. I haven't had most of these, but they are some of the great cold hardy breeds. Are there any breeds that were developed from around where you live, or from a similar climate? Look into that! Specifically if it was a landrace that stabilized itself (like the Barnvelder and Shetland). Looking into the country of origin is a really helpful way to see if the breed will do well in the winter. If you're willing to spend some time on it, you could also think about selecting for your own winter layer. This means having a rooster and hatching out chicks, so if that's not an option for you than that's fine, but I figured I'd put it out there anyways. Get some of the breeds you think will do well, or that you just think would be fun to get, and then hatch chicks in the middle of the winter from the few hens who continue to lay. That way you are naturally selecting for winter layers from proven stock, and you don't have to spend gobs of money on specialized breeds.

hans muster wrote:

If some of your chickens are laying in the short days, you can incubate those eggs, and will therefore develop a strain of chickens especially adapted to the short days.

This incubation presumes you have a rooster to fertilize those eggs.  No rooster, no chicks to hatch!