Shorter hours of daylight cause chooks to lay fewer or no eggs.

The Clancys won't switch on lights, as many producers do, to overcome the problem, and had hoped to boost their numbers of laying chooks with 1000 pullets from Tamworth.

But their order fell through when a supplier said floods in the state's north and power outages earlier this year had made young chooks scarce.

The Clancys sell eggs on alternate weeks at farmers markets on the north and south side of Canberra.

These days they're selling about 250 dozen eggs a week. They sell out in an hour.

Their aim was to order in 18-week-old pullets in March and have them laying at 22 to 23 weeks old, which would have increased production through the winter.

''When we asked around we found everybody was short and we could not source young chooks, and still can't,'' Mrs Clancy said. ''It occurs to me there is a soft spot in the market, if someone wanted to start up a business. We were talking to someone at the [north side] EPIC markets who said a friend starting up in Victoria had found only one supplier.''

In spring time there was a surplus of eggs, and Canberra cafes were happy to take everything left over from the markets.

Mr Clancy said they had about 2000 chooks and needed reinforcements well ahead of the colder months.

''They need to be in production before winter hits, otherwise they just don't start.

''They won't lay at peak production during winter, only about 60 per cent. Because we operate as natural as can be, we can't do any artificial lighting. It's against what the general public's view is of our enterprise. You may as well have them back in the cage.''

Southside Farmers Market owner Stanley Van Wijk said stall holder numbers dropped from 60 to 50 over winter, although some fresh produce came from a chestnut grower at Batlow, cabbage, potato and orange growers, and mushroom farmers from the Southern Highlands.

''Egg producers find it difficult. We have one producer coming every second week instead of weekly,'' he said.

Canberrans had a feast of surplus eggs and other produce in January last year when the Southside market had to close abruptly at the basketball stadium in Phillip, after relocating from the Woden CIT campus.

The markets returned to the CIT campus with approval to trade for 12 months. Moves are afoot to make this a permanent arrangement.