Is it acceptable to leave light on for the birds 24 hours a day?

[kwinnypoo]

Instead of turning lights on and off for them (to encourage egg laying) is it ok to just turn a light on, and leave it until it burns out? I'm not worried about electrical consumption, but more to be sure that it's ok with the birds.

 

[kwinnypoo]

Not to mention ward off potential predators.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Chickens naturally, like all things, need their sleep and to sleep in a natural dark environment. Leaving a light on 24/7 would be something I would not personally consider. Sleep disturbance and sleep deprivation gets most living creatures completely out of sorts. I know I get crabby without my sleep. LOL

 

[kwinnypoo]

Ok, they are right outside my house, so they get the lights from my living room at night, so it would be a porch light on shining over the yard, as opposed to in their coop, type of thing... But they sleep mostly in the bushes in my yard, so would recieve some filtered light... Will that a) help with egg production or b) do what you mentioned and alter circadium rhythm and stuff like that?

 

[Imp]

It won't bother them a bit. They sleep just fine with a light on.

Imp

 

[Chambertin]

Should be ok.
I left the light on by accident in the coop a couple times. Now the girls complain if I turn it off.
Go figure.

To save a little energy I sneak over and switch it off if I have a late night pee. More of a mental thing than a savings thing. One tiny repurposed walk in cooler light wont break the bank.

 

[mickey328]

They do that in commercial production...maybe that's why it sort of goes "against my grain", LOL Frankly, I've no idea whether it would be harmful in any way. We opted not to provide supplemental light. We only got them for our own consumption of eggs and when they lay at full capacity we get way more than we can eat. Even with the reduction we've seen with the shorter days, we're still getting more than we need, so we figured to just let Mother Nature take care of things. It's just a personal choice.

 

[Ridgerunner]

They do what in commercial production!!!! Where they can control the lighting, the big commercial operations provide 14 hours of light and 10 hours of dark for hens in lay. Many people love to bash the commercial operations, often based on misinformation. There are some things about those operations I don't like, but a healthy chicken is the most productive chicken. The commercial operations are about keeping the chickens healthy during their productive life. It's some of the things they do to control behavioral and health problems I don't like, but at least base criticism on reality.

You can read through the defects in the Egg Quality Handbook. This is written with the commercial operations in mind, but many of the things in this apply to us. You will find that there are specific egg defects associated with continuous lighting. This does not mean that each and every egg 100% of the time will have these defects, but enough eggs out of the thousands laid each day have these problems that they recommend against continuous lighting.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/ourbooks/1/egg-quality-handbook/

I like to raise and keep my chickens as near to natural as I can. This means giving them some dark time to rest.

 

[Izzymoon]

I think the night/day thing is important, clearly you can do it, but why when they make great commercial timers which make it painless to have the best of both worlds.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

mine is on 24/7/365 now... No issues.