artificially extending daylight hours in the coop

[digitS']

One way which may help in thinking about this is to: Never let hens see a loss in hours of light while they are in production.

The natural home of the chicken is on or close to the equator and hours of daylight is very consistent.

In North America, far from the equator, the sun may shine for only a few hours each day. Relying entirely on daylight, my birds would be on the roost for 16 hours out of every 24 hours, right now.

As daylight hours begin to fall in the autumn of the year, I don't turn a coop light on until the hours of light drop quite a bit below 12 hours. Usually, the birds move into a molt in September and October - altho' it varies a little from bird to bird.

Molting is a time for more roosting, less activity, and a break in egg production. A break of 1 or 2 months is to be expected.

Along in November, I turn on the electricity to the coop and begin increasing their hours of light. Their feed and water is also moved indoors at this time. I think it is very important for the birds to be able to eat thru most of every 24 hours during times of winter cold.

The use of gaslights and the advent of electricity for our own homes and workplaces must have been seen as "artificial" at that time in history.

Steve

 

[wordgirl]

I just added artificial light a couple of weeks ago and it DID take several days to see much difference. I started the light on the 29th of December and in two days I was getting seven a day as opposed to only six. Then by the 8th of January, I was getting ten a day. The last few days or so I have gotten 14-15 eggs daily. So stick with it, and hopefully you'll be seeing more eggs soon!

ETA:

omelay!

 

[patman75]

My girls stopped laying all together this winter. I added a timer and light to go on at 3:00 am to 8:30am and then again from 3:00pm-5:00pm because the coop got dark quickly because there is no windows on the west side of the coop and the hens were roosting very early. I make sure the light shuts off while there is still natural fading light so they can find the roost and get settled for the night naturally.

After 2 weeks on the new schedule I started getting eggs again, 4 weeks later all my hens are laying again. No heat or insulation, well ventilated, no drafts with temperatures getting into the single digits at night.

 

[crooked stripe]

Does it make a difference if the light is red or white?

 

[chicks4kids]

I use white light. With simulating daylight, I can't imagine a red light working too well.

 

[omelay]

for the past several weeks we have been getting two eggs per day. this evening i got six. i hope this is the start of a trend.

 

[chicks4kids]

You also said you were gonna attempt to get warm water in there...just go to TSC and get a 5 qt. heated water bowl. They work great. It's nice going out to the coop and seeing water instead of frozen water

 

[omelay]

since i posted this we have gradually been increasing eggs. today we got seventeen!! we were so excited that we had breakfast for dinner. scrambled eggs, pancakes, and home fried potatoes. we love eggs!! it is just about the single entree that all the kids will reliably eat.

omelays.blogspot.com

 

[City Gardener]

When I was a kid we lit our backyard flock, and my mother swears she started lighting on August 15.

 

[digitS']

Good for You, Omelay

!

Quote:
You know, it makes some sense to turn on a light that early in the year - don't want the hens to experience shorter hours of daylight when they are producing eggs. However, if they are pre-lay pullets, you don't want to push them into production too early. Premature egg-laying is not such a good thing and delaying production until they have more mature bodies is one reason the amount of protein in their diet is lowered as they get past 2 and 3 months of age.

If they are 5 months and older, they may be able to begin laying even without added light. But, if everything begins to slow down with all the added hours of winter darkness, that certainly isn't going to encourage them to produce eggs. This seems to be especially true once the hens are over a year old.

Steve