Coop lighting question

[mikecnorthwest]

Has anyone here used solar powered landscape LED lights for their coop? I was at Lowes yesterday and they have a 3 pack of solar lights on clearance for $30. The neat thing is that come with plenty of wire and the solar panel is a seperate unit with its own mount. It would be extemely easy for me to mount the panel on my roof and run the wire into the roost for the lights without having to modify any of the components. Also, I suspect these simply come on when it gets dark outside so theoretically the roost would have the lights on all night. Would that be a problem? Would I just be better off without lighting? I live near Portland, Oregon so we do have our seasons.

 

[CoopCrazy]

Can u test to see how long they stay charged.. My solar lights only last a few hours after dark... The only thing I would worry about is I have heard that white light causes some chickens to peck... My girls get 14 hrs of light a day on a timer... Sorry i dont know if that helped any ...

 

[patandchickens]

The ones I've seen (maybe they make better ones now) typically poop out after 3-6 hrs of light, so you would not necessarily be stuck with all-night lighting. Indeed, if you wanted to decrease the duration of the light, all's you'd have to do is carefully (with experimentation, which would be slightly annoying to do unless you're naturally a night-owl) place something like layers of windowscreen over the solar panel of the light, until it gets only enough charge to run for the time you want. (On cloudy days of course you'll get less run-time).

Pat

 

[MHF]

Check out Harbor Freight, they have a solar shed light I am going to get one next pay day.