Egg laying and short days?

[jed1154]

OK, so a buddy of mine got his chicks exactly one week before i got mine. However, his have been laying for 3 weeks already. We feed the same food. The only thing that is different is that he has put a light on his to trick them into thinking the days are longer. I do not have electricity on mine so its not really an option.

Can something like that really make that much of a difference?

 

[digitS']

It depends on where you are and how many hours of daylight you have, Jed.

If your chickens get 8 hours of light and spend 16 hours on the roost, and

his chickens get 16 hous of light and spend 8 hours on the roost

you can see how that would make a difference in the 24 hour day of a chicken.

Edit: I live where we have 8 hours of sunlight right now. So, I turn on an 11 watt light. They have 15 hours of light each day. My 4 pullets came into lay in November. They layed 23 eggs last week and 23 eggs the week before. Looks like they are on that track for this week.

Steve

 

[Mahonri]

I have 23 available layers (one is broody) and today I got 12 eggs. Lights go on at 6AM. Lights go off at 8PM It's dark for 10 hours.... they get 14 hours of light. They all seem happy and healthy.

 

[Flycropper]

As the day light got shorter this winter, my chickens' egg laying dropped off significantly. I change the timer on the light in their coop to turn on earlier in the morning. Comes on at 3:00 a.m. and off around 5 to 6 pm. After about a week they were back up to their normal egg production.

The light made a big difference for mine.

 

[bassfishrman]

I have 22 laying hens and was getting 15-18 eggs per day until daylight hours were reduced. My egg production rapidly dropped to 2-4 per day. I put a light in my coop that comes on at 4am and goes off at daylight and after 2 weeks of the light, I am up to 10-12 eggs per day.

 

[wisdom_seeker]

Quote:
I don't remember the numbers but the light made a huge difference for me.

I would try to do something with car batteries for lights. I'm not sure if LEDs might help with power consumption?

 

[jonny_v]

Our chickens are laying despite the day / night ratio.

We got them at 18 wks, they started laying at 21 weeks and we have been getting ususally 6 eggs a day and only sometimes 5 eggs from 6 hens.

Decided when we got them that we we going to leave lighting up to nature. Is it because they are young? We are in NE PA.

 

[digitS']

One thing in your advantage, Jonny-v, is that your latitude is only about 40 degrees.

You have nearly 9 1/2 hours of sunlight.

Steve

Here's a service for people to check their sunlight. It's easy for US cities. You'll need to know your longitude and latitude, outside of the US.

 

[jonny_v]

Thanks, Steve! We are enjoying thier production!

 

[cajunlizz]

Quote:
Well , I have to be honest and say YES it does make a big difference . We were picking like 4 or 5 eggs a day , until DH put lights in both coops and NOW we are picking between 23 - 27 eggs a day .

I had a bunch of late layers , so since they were RESTING all summer , we decided to KICK START them by adding more light once days have gotten shorter ... It works .