Chicken Party At Night!

[kbroom]

I don't know enough about chickens yet to know what I'm not supposed to do. Ignorance DOES have its rewards....I think. LOL! I have strung lights all over my chicken run, and have large lights for both coops inside. The chickens seem to like it, of course, what are they going to do? Form another committee? Like the older chickens did, when I opened the last quarter of the run, getting rid of the fire wood, so that my baby Sex Links would have a greater area to run? Well, they haven't done it yet. They also haven't complained about the music. That's right. I keep the radio on soft, inspirational music, so that the coyotes (I've heard that they prefer Rap!) don't get interested. One of these days, if it ever stops raining, I'm going to find another place for the wood...

 

[rosemarythyme]

It's cute but chickens really should have darkness at night to sleep properly.

 

[AidKD]

I was thinking the same thing as @rosemarythyme. It is very cute, but maybe you could turn off the lights before you go to bed? Have you monitored to see how they sleep at night?

 

[3KillerBs]

I don't have any links handy, but I believe that people have tried 24 hour light to see if that improves laying and found that it had a negative effect on the chicken's health over time.

That said, many urban/suburban chickens live in areas that are never truly dark because of streetlights, security lights, etc.

Best to monitor their behavior and health and be prepared to adjust as appropriate.

 

[aart]

If you're asking whether what you're doing is a good management technique....
.....it is not.

 

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

It looks cute but chickens do need darkness at night to sleep. I have string lights across the top of my chicken yard fence and a motion light (it’s only 800 lumens so it’s not a bright flood light) outside of it so I can see what I’m doing out there when I’m out during warm nights, but I really wouldn’t recommend lighting the coop where it’ll disturb the chickens. The coyotes would also get used to a radio btw!

 

[aart]

OK. Then the chickens would prefer the dark? The reason I did this in the beginning is because, when I left the light on, I noticed that they seemed to gravitate to the light (for security?) as opposed to shying away from it, as an annoyance, seemingly.

I have motion activated lights just outside the pen, so that should suffice.

No kind of lights will deter predators in the long run.
A strong and secure coop is the way to go.

 

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

OK. There seems to be a consensus among the chicken moms. I'll leave the string lights. It looks in the picture like the light is INSIDE the coops, which it is not. But still, it may be too much as well. I'm going to try just leaving the string lights then, and I also have motion activated lights outside the pen as well. So, that should alarm any would be predators. Perhaps I'll bring back the soft music during the egg laying stage? Don't know. I thought it might help, but maybe not. Doesn't anyone here play music for their chickens???

My string lights and motion activated lights don’t deter predators though. The string lights are purely for aesthetic purposes and so I can see when I’m out there since I like to be out in that area on warm nights. The motion lights are so I can see as well (the garden is back there too).
The lights definitely don’t keep away predators as you can see in this photo, here’s a coyote just walking along the outside of my run, unfazed at the motion light that flashed on! They just walk past it since they know they can’t get to my chickens because the coop is within a hardware cloth run, and the coop itself is shut tight for the night.

 

[fluffycrow]

Unfortunately it's not such a good idea. If my understanding is correct, and you're doing it to keep the coyotes away, they will eventually learn that music and lights won't get in their way of getting to the birds. Best to just have a secure coop and run and just let the birds sleep in the dark

 

[CaliforniaMountainChicks]

OK. I can see the point. I got both my coops inside the chicken run. The run itself is regular chicken wire, but both their coops are shut up tightly and the screening is also hardware cloth. We also have the bang bang kind of security and 3 very noisy dogs. So hopefully, that will help. We do hear coyotes at night sometimes, but none have ever come THAT close. I hope it STAYS that way.

We live on a property with something we all call the coyote highway! It’s a seasonal creek bed, also known as a wash in the desert, that the coyotes pretty much use as a thoroughfare. They are on our property pretty much every night and are this close to the chicken run. They have also checked them out during the daytime but couldn’t get in and haven’t tried again. We just coexist with them since we live in the more rural high desert, they’re really good at controlling the rodent population, I just keep my chickens in a Fort Knox coop and run.