Eggs and Light

[therod]

I have 7 Barred Rocks and only one is laying, like clockwork, one egg a day. About three weeks ago, I found 7 eggs in their boxes. Since then, it's been back to the one-egg-a-day routine. I put a light in their coop and have been leaving it on all night. Will this bother the hens? Any ideas on the weird egg laying schedule? I got these hens early this past May.

 

[backyard clucker]

I have 60 laying hens. I leave a light on all day and night. Before I did this I was only gettting 8- 10 eggs a day. Now with the light on my eggs have went up to 24 or more a day. Pullets are still young about 28 weeks old. They are RIR and Isa Browns and some mixed breeds. All lay brown eggs. I let mine chickens out around 3:00pm and they still go back in to the hen house at night.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
Are you sure the others are not laying elsewhere? While it's common for newly laying hens to be erratic in their laying, I would think that you would have seen a few more eggs after three weeks.
As for the light. Would you enjoy sleeping with a light on all night? I know I wouldn't and I don't think the hens would either. All living creatures need periods of dark and light. It's the natural cycle of things.
To add a light to make up for the decrease in daylight during the winter, you need to shoot for a total of 14 hours of light a day. You can set up a light on timer to easily achieve this. The timers are less than $10 at wally world.
IMO, it's best to add the light in the morning vs. the evening to allow the chickens to go to roost in the evening naturally and no one will get stuck on the floor from the lights going off suddenly at night. An example - At your location, it's currently getting dark at 6 PM. You would set the light to come on at 4 AM, to give them a total of 14 hrs.
Finally, there are pros and cons to adding artificial lighting to stimulate winter egglaying. It would worth your while to do a search here on BYC about the benefits vs. the risks.

 

[ange]

i have the same probloem. Concerning the light, I think i just will leave it ans not add the artififcal light. We do have a large window ijn the coop

 

[ahappybrood]

Quote:
I have heard that chickens only have so many eggs to lay in their life. If you over do the light that will just mean a shorter egg laying life for them and you. Does that mak sense...kind of like using them all up now and less eggs later. Just a suggestion if you want to stretch it out over a longer period of time.