Hopefully this is the right forum! I am thinking about lighting my coop and run as the fall and winter are approaching. I want to have lights on from 7:00am until maybe 8:00pm? I was wondering how to sequence the operation of the lights. If I put a large flood light in the run and at 8:00pm it shuts off all of a sudden what are my chickens going to do? I then thought that I would have to put another light in the coop so they know where they should go when it got really dark all of a sudden. How well can a chicken see at night and will they be able to find there way back into the coop when the lights go out. How has everyone else solved this problem? or is it a problem?
We us a single 15 watt bulb in center of Hen House on a timer setting of 14 hour on 10 hour off (on 5:30am to 7:30 pm) and we have no issues. We divide the artificial lighting time up so there isn't to long stuck in the lighted hen house am or pm to get bored which sometimes leads to bad habits.... Both Hen Houses are pretty dark so we leave the lights on all day and I don't have to keep resetting it as hours of light change. 15 watt bulbs are very low cost to run and give off little heat. We use a dim bulb so they are on the roost when the lights go out and it is less of a shock for them to have a dim light go out or on as opposed to bright. It works well for our hen houses here in AZ anyway.....FWIW Edit to add info....
Quote:Chickens can't see at all during the night and are "night blind" and you can ready many stories in the predator section about how they will just sit there and let a rat chew the feet and/or face off and not even move.
Quote:Good advice with the dim light, I assume its on a timer? I also read that using a red bulb is even less stressful to the birds. Its what we use in the brooder as well.
