Artificial lighting for the fall and winter months.

[usedhobarts]

Hi, I'm looking into some artificial coop lighting for my girls this upcoming fall and winter. I live way up north in NW Minnesota about 60 miles from the Canadian border and will , by mid January , only have 8 hours of full reasonably natural daylight in my coop at most. I'm looking into timers etc. My coop is an old milk house attached to the barn so it is well insulated, concrete floor with a floor drain. It has full power, but only has two smaller windows facing west. This gets me a little more daylight coming in towards the evening but as the sun sets a bit more SW in the winter and the fact that little to no sunlight draws in until after 8-9 am as the barn blocks the east sunrise I'm going to have very minimal and inconsistent natural daylight.

Here is my concern. I can put in timers on the lighting the milk house to try to keep a consistent 12-14 hours of daylight or artificial daylight per say but it seems a little nutty to go from pitch black to bright light in a flash. I have not found any timers that double as gradual timers however I have found WIFI capable, gradual timers that I can actually regulate from in the house from my ipad. These however only work with LED lighting.

Does anyone have any experience with using LED lighting in coops versus traditional light bulbs and how does it effect fooling the chickens? The nice thing about this technology is that is is designed for aquariums to mimic sunrise and sunsets through graduation. Surprisingly it is fairly inexpensive. Am I crazy for thinking ( or over thinking) this?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Blammmo]

One led bulb should be sufficient if it's at least a 60w equivalent, I also live in northern MN and I use an outdoor timer with an led bulb in my coop and during periods of low level daylight I have about 16 hrs of light and give the hens an 8hr rest period without light. The instant on and off doesn't seem to bother them, heck they are even up on roost about a half hour before it shuts down, like they just know it's time to get ready for bed.

 

[tridentk9]

Another option is a second timer with a low wattage bulb. Have it go on/off 15-30 minutes different than your main light. This way if you get caught out there during lights out there would still be enough light for you to safely move around.

I was wondering earlier if full spectrum lights are considered for chickens. With the parrots we used full spectrum for the health benefits just like in humans.

 

[aart]

I used supplemental lighting this past winter, just used a 40w non coated incandescent bulb.
Had it set to come on early in the morning (3:30am at the peak of the darkness season) so they could go to roost with the natural sunset....so no all of sudden darkness.

I started tapering up the 'length of day' in around October, and just shut it off today, but am going to start it in September this year...aim at having 12 - 14 hours of 'daylight'.

It's important to taper the amount of time light is on and it can take a few weeks for it to take effect on the birds.