Do you leave a light on in coop at night?

[JesusHChicken]

Oh yeah! All chickens in coop and on roost. I'm a happy chicken daddy.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

It rained so much last night! YES, the light was on at the time. I took advantage of the opportunity while it still was on to check my hens for a damage report after the storm.
This was in the nesting box.

The box next to the perches. All the birds were huddled far away from the box so I investigated and yelled for hubby!
Second one in less than a week.
Gotta love that rain!

 

[JesusHChicken]

Cool.. Gopher snake? Can't see shape of head. We have garter snakes around here.
Now that the coop is done I would love some rain. The dirt road is so dry I just watched a cloud of dust take about 15 minutes to settle.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Cool.. Gopher snake? Can't see shape of head. We have garter snakes around here.
Now that the coop is done I would love some rain. The dirt road is so dry I just watched a cloud of dust take about 15 minutes to settle.

It's a Yellow rat snake. They are everywhere right now because they smell the million rats that have invaded our and surrounding farms. All I hear anymore from neighboring farmers is rat tales.
In Florida if you have rats, you have yellow or red rat snakes too. Caught only 1 rat in a live trap last night. Hubby gave it to the snake. We will relocate it tomorrow. Still busy from the storm today.

 

[72Chevelle]

I'll share my experience. We are first time chicken owners - 5 RIRs. I had to put all 5 in the coop the first night and none of them would roost. They all laid together by the door. Second night, two flew into the coop on their own. Still not roosting. Third night they all made it into the coop on their own, but did not roost. We installed a small solar light and that very night all of them were up on the roosts. The light seemed to help in our case. We have an old 8'x12' shed that we converted into a coop so maybe all of the space was a little overwhelming without some light to navigate.