How many people use a lighting system for your hens to keep laying????

[ChickenKid11]

Hey I was just wondering if some of you use a lighting system during winter! If so can you please tell me how or what you use!
Thanks!!!!!

 

[dantodd]

I have a small coop and I use 2 strips of LEDs pointed at the ceiling, on at 5AM and off at 9AM, the girls return to roost at normal dusk. I've only been doing it for a little while but they are laying in the AM, sometimes before I get out there at 6:30. I want to provide as consistent a daylight as is comfortable and safe for them. Since they're all you I suspect they'd lay through the winter anyway but this is just a little insurance.

 

[wyododge]

just a light bulb on a timer plugged into the wall.

 

[MommyMagpie]

Coop #1 (Red Sex Links) has a light fixture with a wire cover over the bulb, the wiring runs to a switch box with an extra outlet, and then a cord runs from the box into the house where I have it on a timer. It comes on at 4 pm and goes off at about 9:30 pm. I don't have light in the morning because they are noisy enough then as it is, and I don't want them getting up earlier than I do (about 6 am).

Coop #2 (Standard Cochins) has one of those shop lights with a wire cover and a long cord that is plugged into the outlet in coop #1. Hopefully they will run on the same timer; we just installed this light a few minutes ago so we have to wait until the timer kicks off to see if we were correct in our assumption that the outlet is timed too.

I have 40 watt bulbs in both fixtures.

 

[munithman]

So does it make a difference in their production? I was getting about 14 eggs a day from 22 hens but am down to 8-9 per day now. Will the extra daylight make a difference?

 

[MommyMagpie]

Quote:
Having never tried not using supplemental light, I couldn't say for sure, but my opinion is that it would probably help.

 

[SuburbanSue]

my first fall/winter with the girls so with what I've read I have a 40 watt bulb that comes on around 5:45 for about an hour n a half, then comes back on again at 6 until8 in the evening. I've read to gradually go up to the amount of time so I will probably adjust the morning wake up call about a half hour or so soon. I'm new to all of this.

 

[ThePamperedPullet]

We have a string of Christmas lights that run down through our 8 breeding pens. They are set on a timer that kicks them on at 4am and they go off at 7am. The birds go to roost under normal dusk lighting so that they are not plunged into total darkness all of a sudden by lights going off from a timer. Chickens do not see well in the dark.
Your lighting only needs to be light enough to see the level of water in their waterer from 8 feet when your eyes are adjusted to the darkness. This is approximately 2 foot candles of light. The bulbs we use in our string are all dark colored (red, blue, green etc)

 

[Eggcessive]

I have been using a simple timer with a heat lamp with a 13 watt fluorescent bulb on at 6 am then off at 10 am. They have ebnough light in the coop duriing the day and go to bed normally at dusk--around 6:45 pm here. I will eventually move the timer to light up the coop at 5 am when winter is here. I'm getting 15-18 eggs perday from 32 six mo. old hens, not all of which are laying.

 

[Sassafras]

I am new to chickens but mine are not slowing down at all yet. I have plenty of eggs so I don't plan on using extra light.