Thanks For Nothing BYC Hens Stopped Laying!

RAnst4038

Songster
8 Years
Apr 23, 2014
140
25
146
Jacobus, Pa
Oh yea give them 14 hours of light to (keep them laying) or stop them laying.
I strung one white Christmas tube light around the ceiling and put it on a timer 7pm to 9pm and 6am to 7am when the coop opens.
What did I get for my trouble. More wasted food on the floor despite my best anti-shovel design. They must be getting a mouth full and spitting it at each other. A hour to grind the nice big easy to cat scoop plop piles into hundreds of small flat crap that falls through the cat scoop. And one egg a day instead of 3. I have two 23 week old Dominique that should be laying. Mostly did the lights for them.
 
I hate to bust your rant against BYC, but the 23 week old pullets you have might not be ready to lay no matter what you try do. The guideline for them laying between 20 and 30 weeks is just that - a guideline. The chickens don't read BYC so they don't know that the day they turn 23 weeks old their owners are expecting egg factories to kick in. I'm not planning on using lights in my coop, but those who do recommend setting the timer for the lights to go on early in the morning, leaving the sunset/roosting time alone.
 
X2. Also, birds that come into maturity in the fall sometimes start laying a bit later then they would at the same age in the spring, when days are getting longer. At least that's been my experience with new layers in fall versus spring.

I don't do lights either so can't comment on that.
 
The light you have might not be bright enough...can you read a newspaper in the coop?

Also if you just put the lights up, it can take up to 6 weeks for them to be effective.
The lighting times should be increased slowly up until they 14-16 hours of light per day.

I used a 40 watt incandescent bulb last year, came on early morning to allow going to roost with the natural sunset.
But I start late(mid October) and my pullets didn't start laying until late December.

Here's a pretty good article on supplemental lighting.
 
The light you have might not be bright enough...can you read a newspaper in the coop?
Um, at my age I have all I can do to read a newspaper in the sunshine!..<sigh> I'd need sports arena lights to read one in the coop.
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