Is coturnix laying season over? and some light questions.

[birdnoob]

I've been getting 1-2 less eggs than normal for the past week or so, and havent gotten any over the last two days. I'm in the SF bay area, and we just dropped below 13 hours of daylight(6:38-7:36 today).

Would it be a bad thing to hang lights after they've stopped laying I was planning on putting them up before they stopped, but I thought I had a couple more weeks. Would a string or two of icicle christmas lights that I already have be enough for a 12x12 space? And they only need to be on when the sun is down, not the whole 13-14 hours, right?

 

[birdnoob]

@Nabiki Since I know you live relatively close.

 

[Nabiki]

They need 14-16 hours of light/day to lay consistently. Some will continue to lay all winter, but most will stop if you don't give them extra light.

 

[vall]

Yes, one or two strings of xmas lights should be enough and yes, you only need them on when the sun is down. Remember twilight adds about an hour of light too. Mine are molting early this year.. normally I start supplemental light around Labor Day but I turned it on a week ago. It might take a few weeks for them to ramp back up if they've stopped, and some might not lay at all till spring, it depends on the bird.

 

[FloorCandy]

Ive has bad results with Christmas lights. I spent a lot of time carefully hanging them on my first 2 pens last year, and the birds all stopped laying anyway, so I got little spotlights, put them on a timer, and they started back up in a week or so.

 

[QuailTail]

Ive has bad results with Christmas lights. I spent a lot of time carefully hanging them on my first 2 pens last year, and the birds all stopped laying anyway, so I got little spotlights, put them on a timer, and they started back up in a week or so.

Any chance you could show a picture of your setup with the spotlights?

 

[preciouseureka]

I've avoided using artificial lights at all as I've been told is shortens the birds life considerably. Can anyone confirm or deny?

 

[NY Coturnix]

I used white Christmas lights from Walmart all last winter. They were $5 for a 20 foot length and had no issues with egg production dropping off. With the days getting shorter in NYS I've noticed the egg count dropping from around 22 - 24 a day to 15-16. Figured it was time to run the extension cords again. I don't have a picture of the pen with the lights on but here's my set up and just used hooks in the top and strung them starting at one end and circled back until I ran out of lights. Its a 10 foot pen so I almost made a complete circle.

 

[Aquira]

I know the smoke has been bad lately (I'm in the far east bay) so that could also be a possibility for them to not be laying as much.

 

[FloorCandy]

I used white Christmas lights from Walmart all last winter. They were $5 for a 20 foot length and had no issues with egg production dropping off. With the days getting shorter in NYS I've noticed the egg count dropping from around 22 - 24 a day to 15-16. Figured it was time to run the extension cords again. I don't have a picture of the pen with the lights on but here's my set up and just used hooks in the top and strung them starting at one end and circled back until I ran out of lights. Its a 10 foot pen so I almost made a complete circle.

I literally did the same, generic white lights from Walmart or Target, hooks, wrapped around, circled back, until I ran out, and everyone stopped laying. I had, I want to say 20 ft (maybe 25, I forget how they come) hanging inside the little coop, which is maybe 2.5 ft x 3 ft. Then I hung another strand of 20 ft in the open pen area which is about 5 ft x 3 ft. It looked plenty bright when looking at it from outside, but no luck. I wonder why. I put up the little led spotlights and they started back up. Same timer and schedule.