Sunshine_Amy
Songster
Hello good folks.
My girls (mixed breeds) were born in late May, and I was hoping for some of them to provide eggs starting in October, but I think I may have messed up the plan. I don't normally want to supplement lighting, but I was going do it a bit this first season, just to enjoy that laying-through-the-first-winter thing. I don't want to do anything to compromise their health, and I know increasing lighting will speed up their maturity, "especially as they approach laying age" (says my reference), so the plan was to start supplementing lighting when it was still 15 hours (as the book recommends) and decrease from there as they mature. I misread the instructions and thought I didn't have to start this until Sept., as is true for "most of the country." But here in Massachusetts I just realized we're already at 13.5 hour days. Doh!
...My neighbor's birds are all still laying just fine. Maybe I'm calculating the daylight wrong? I'm using official sunrise to sunset times.
The earliest expected egg (from my Austrlorp) was going to be early October (followed within the month by my Ancona, Welsummer, & Sussex). I don't need all of my birds to lay, but would love to have even just one laying, over the winter.... Is there any chance I'll be getting one laying without intervention?
If not, I'm thinking I need to wait, now, until the last bird is supposed to be fully mature, to start increasing lighting, right, so I don't cause any to mature too fast? I don't want to separate them, and with a 6-8 monther I'm looking at Jan-March, right?...Or is there a chance that they are still far enough from maturity that I can bump up their lighting to 15 hours now, and start decreasing from here, without ill effect?
My girls (mixed breeds) were born in late May, and I was hoping for some of them to provide eggs starting in October, but I think I may have messed up the plan. I don't normally want to supplement lighting, but I was going do it a bit this first season, just to enjoy that laying-through-the-first-winter thing. I don't want to do anything to compromise their health, and I know increasing lighting will speed up their maturity, "especially as they approach laying age" (says my reference), so the plan was to start supplementing lighting when it was still 15 hours (as the book recommends) and decrease from there as they mature. I misread the instructions and thought I didn't have to start this until Sept., as is true for "most of the country." But here in Massachusetts I just realized we're already at 13.5 hour days. Doh!
...My neighbor's birds are all still laying just fine. Maybe I'm calculating the daylight wrong? I'm using official sunrise to sunset times.
The earliest expected egg (from my Austrlorp) was going to be early October (followed within the month by my Ancona, Welsummer, & Sussex). I don't need all of my birds to lay, but would love to have even just one laying, over the winter.... Is there any chance I'll be getting one laying without intervention?
If not, I'm thinking I need to wait, now, until the last bird is supposed to be fully mature, to start increasing lighting, right, so I don't cause any to mature too fast? I don't want to separate them, and with a 6-8 monther I'm looking at Jan-March, right?...Or is there a chance that they are still far enough from maturity that I can bump up their lighting to 15 hours now, and start decreasing from here, without ill effect?
