Artificial Lights v/s None During Winter for Egg Production Poll

[BigBlueHen53]

Poor Winnie!

Have you seen her? I posted her in the Ugly Molt thread (it's not called that, but it should be.) Here she is. She is normally my prettiest bird!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Have you seen her? I posted her in the Ugly Molt thread (it's not called that, but it should be.) Here she is. She is normally my prettiest bird!

View attachment 4237950

Aww, poor girl!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Ok, apparently I have to describe.

As the days shorten, especially when Daylight Savings ends, I’m hoping to have enough light in the run to encourage them to stay up and mess around a bit, maybe do their part toward turning over the deep litter for a change!

The coop is a Nestera sitting on a raised platform (no room for lights in there!) plus an open-air L-shaped out door roost, so we really have more of an open-air coop+run. A crun. Or a roop. So anyway, there’s 120 sq ft for five pullets to hang out in, doing their chicken things, and enough lighting to allow them to do so.

That’s the plan, anyway. Civil dawn (when it’s light out, but the sun isn’t over the horizon, which is called sunrise) + 12 hours. I doubt the lighting will be bright enough to influence lighting, but I’d love not having to slog out at 6 a.m. in 35° to let them out.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

crun. Or a roop.

To extend their "daylight" hours enough to get them to lay, bright lights are not required. I have heard that even a night light will do. Just enough light to enable them to see by. The light that I provide is significantly brighter than that, but I understand it really is not necessary.
I do not use a brilliantly bright LED light that would temporarily blind you, just something along the lines of about a 25-watt indoor/outdoor incandescent light bulb. Like what we used to use on the front porch, remember those? In the dark of night it seems plenty bright, though.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

To extend their "daylight" hours enough to get them to lay, bright lights are not required. I have heard that even a night light will do. Just enough light to enable them to see by. The light that I provide is significantly brighter than that, but I understand it really is not necessary.
I do not use a brilliantly bright LED light that would temporarily blind you, just something along the lines of about a 25-watt indoor/outdoor incandescent light bulb. Like what we used to use on the front porch, remember those? In the dark of night it seems plenty bright, though.

That’s interesting! I didn’t realize that even a single Edison bulb would affect laying.

I really want my girls to take a break - the EE is a daily layer, and among the three of them we still average 18/week, but man, darkness at 5:20 is painful.