Daylight question

[dougan778]

I just got about a dozen female coturnix that are just about to be laying age. I live in WI and the daylight cycle just dropped below 14 hours a day. It will be at about 13 1/2 hours a day by the end of the month.

I've read that they need 14 hours of daylight to lay. I plan to extend this light with a lamp later in the season, but this is my first attempt at birds and I'd kind of like to see the "fruits" of my labors before I dive in and spend more money with a lighting set up. Do you think they'll start laying with this kind of daylight or do you think that if it's a little below 14 hours they won't want to start?

 

[HowieNZ]

I think you will have to put lighting in, if they had already started laying you might have had them laying they would have kept laying a while longer under the 14 hour mark.

 

[dougan778]

Thanks for the response.

My cage is set up as a 4'x2' cage. A small portion, about 1'x2' of that is set up as a mini-"coop" that's a wooden box with a small door in it, while the rest is just wire for walls, ceiling, and floor. I was thinking in the winter i'd just light/heat the "coop" part since they'll probably want to cuddle in there anyway and I don't have a whole ton of them. Now I'm a little worried that lighting in here but not in the rest of the cage will not get them laying because they mostly hang out in the wire part, even at night. What do you think?