guess I will turn off the lights

[rirluvr]

my little chicken A frame ark is lit by an inexpensive solar string LED lights that I found on amazon. It is not a lot of light but enough that the girls can eat and drink and not have it be pitch dark in there. LED soft light seems like it would be alright. when they were chicks I had that infra red light they never complained.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
That's a tough question to answer.

Pros of lights: more eggs

Cons of lights: higher electric bill, less natural for the hens

Giving them supplemental light doesn't necessarily shorten their life span. Most people just find it more natural for the hens to do as they please without artificially stimulating them to lay. While some here have birds that are several years old or older, I think that most backyard flocks have a fairly high turn over rate anyways, due to predators and sickness or disease. Along those lines I advocate giving them the supplemental light.

There is no right or wrong...

 

[GrannySue]

Quote:
Okay, I'll give you that one, for sure! Short days are bad enough here on the 49th parallel.

 

[PandoraTaylor]

Thanks GrannySue

 

[srsmith69]

Quote:
Okay, I'll give you that one, for sure! Short days are bad enough here on the 49th parallel.

so, in the summer when the sun never sets, are they just Laying machines??

 

[chickenlips1954]

Since I wasn't getting many eggs from my 22 hens...4-5 a day...in the summer and fall, I now turn a light on at 6am (along with a heat light) and turn both off at 8pm. Since doing that I have been getting 9-10 eggs a day. My girls have a large fenced chicken yard, plus free-range when I'm home, so it's not like they're locked up in a coop.

 

[AnnesChicks]

Chiming in from the gray and rainy pacific northwest, I think my girls are happier with supplemental lighting. This is my first year with chickens and they went through their first heavy moult about a month ago, egg production (a few days with none - gasp) dropped and most worriesome it didn't seem like they were eating as much of their layer pellets as before. I was really concerned about them...thank goodness I could read up about moulting on this site.

We added a string of rope lights (like christmas lights but in a flexible plastic tube), zig zagged across the ceiling and have it set to come on at 5:00 am until noon. Not a lot of electricity, they have a nice cozy coop so the heat is not that important and we feel a very low chance of any type of fire with these types of enclosed low wattage lights. But they have really perked up and are quite cheery when I let them out in the morning. In fact on really bad mornings, they just look out the door and refuse to come out til later. Two weeks later we are back to two or three eggs a day, their appetites seem to have returned to normal. Whether or not it is because their moult is over, or because of the light I can't say.

 

[19hhbelgian]

So, now I have a question (not trying to hijack

)... I have frizzles and seramas in NE PA - They get cold and like to cuddle under the heat lamp I have in the coop. This is on throughout the night - is this bad? If it is, how do I keep them warm (separate living quarters aren't an option DH will consider

) with out hurting my other girls? On another note, they aren't laying unusually well... Kind of normal, to a little less frequently than during the summer.

 

[sommrluv]

Even with our light, my chickens still tend to put themselves "to bed" 1 hour after dusk. If I go in there to do something at 8pm, like refill feeders so I can sleep in, put in fresh bedding. I get the evil eye, a "burr BURR burr", and they ignore me, whereas normally I have 7 chickens on my shoes, on my shoulders, eating out of my hands.

Quite the rebuff.

 

[mdbokc]

Ours do the same, they chow down big time, then settle in and call it a night within that hour of going in for the night. So we pass on any additional light. But after experimenting and observation, I am now giving them a little early light as they were sitting in the predawn dark, afraid to move much and hungry as can be. When I turned the light on, they became instantly happy and attacked the feeder and waterer. So I am giving them some extra light early now.