Let their be light..........

[dianer29]

I would like to do the solar light for my chickies. Our electric bill is nothing to "crow "about..... sorry. I need a light to have on for them to complete the 14 hour daylight for laying purposes as well as my checking on them and maintaining the coop whenever I need to.I do not want to light the way for predators to visit them or to kill them. We found what we need for the ventilation using solar ,electric and wind and now after searching high and low cannot figure out what to do for this latest project to light area by solar. I do not want the chickies rest and awake cycles messed up let alone their egg laying cycles. BYC members can you help find a solution?

 

[shelleyd2008]

Did you do a search? I know I've seen posts on this, quite recently I believe.
Here are a few:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=2991587#p2991587
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=2984343#p2984343

And here's the search page that has all the results.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/search.php?search_id=289138303&p=2

You can also do your own search and change the display to posts instead of topics, so you don't need to weed through each and every thread looking for answers.

 

[CedarLake]

I have home made LED lighting in my coop. It's not solar powered: I just use a battery since I only use it to check on them at night, not for laying purposes.
Except for a one-week gap when we ran out of eggs last winter, five hens provided enough eggs for us since they lay faster than we can eat them! They stopped laying for about 5 weeks and we had about 4 weeks of eggs saved up at that time.

 

[ksct]

We have a solar light.... it's called 'light me a shed' or 'light a shed' something along those lines. We only have 1 in there (we do have a second) and they work pretty good. I can't tell you a price for sure. I'll have to check it out. I think solar lights are a good idea. We haven't been using it though because..... it's been raining.....

 

[patandchickens]

The difficulty with using a solar or battery-powered light (of course solar ones *are* battery powered, they just use a solar panel to charge up the battery

) for daylength extension (specifically) is that nobody here has yet described a way to hook them up to a timer.

If you can work out the timer thing, not only are you golden but you will be a HERO to many thousands of BYCers who want to see plans for such a design posted

Maybe not the most effective or graceful, but certainly the cheapest and easiest, way of using solar power to extend daylength is to buy some of those cheapie solar path lights. Install them in your coop with the solar-panel part on the outside of the wall facing south, and the lightbulb portion in the inside of the coop. They only put out a dimmish light but you really don't need *that* much illumination to fool the egglaying part of the chicken brain into thinking it's summertime

The battery on those units is pretty cheesy, so they are only good for some several hours of light after sunset, but that is pretty much all you need.

This is not perfect, and will require fiddling and possibly Vocabulary to get it working as best as you can, but it is certainly simple and cheap, until/unless someone comes up with a good battery-with-timer setup.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[shelleyd2008]

Most of the small solar lights (like the walkway lights) only stay lit for a few hours after it gets dark. So for those you wouldn't need a timer.

 

[dianer29]

ksct please shoot me an email if and when you locate the light info.thanx

 

[gsim]

I would do an automobile battery powered 12 volt system. I would keep the battery charged via a solar charger like the type that you can plug into your cigarette lighter. I would use three of those wired in parallell to be certain of getting a good recharge, since they are only trickle chargers designes only to maintain a charge on a battery that is not being drained regularly. I would put a passive non-powered dawn-to-dusk switch to do the timing. Otherwise, if you have power at the site, use a conventional timer that is AC powered to time the solar powered lights. Be advised that some adjusting may be required to maintain the desired amount of light.

When I did my site prep, I ran a 3/4" water line 220 ft to terminate in a lawn/farm hydrant just outside of the coop. I also ran a 12-2 awg (20 amp) line along with an 8-wire telephone cable just in case I wanted something later. The power line was used to poser the fence charger to protect the pen, and flourescent lights inside of the coop. I put in one weather-proof outled outside at the gate, and two regular duplex home ac outlets inside of the coop.

 

[Cindy in PA]

I've been using solar powered "spot" lights with a remote panel from Lowes in my tractor since August. They are 3 lights & a panel & they have 3 LED bulbs per light. The light is pretty bright, the chickens go in at night and eat & drink for awhile. They gradually go dim. Only problem is they vary in the length they stay on between 3 & 5 or so hours right now based on how much sun we get. Don't know how much that will mess them up, but I like them so far. They went on at 6:30 last night & were still on at 10pm when I got home to shut them, but they were all bedded down for the night. They cost $29. I could run an extension cord, but it would be difficult when it is at the far end of the property. I think the shed lights look great also, but I would have to be home to turn them on at night, so this dusk to dawn operation works better for me.

 

[Tonopah Pati]

You could try the led puck lights. My power goes out a lot. I have them all over my house. they are great for closets also. The ones that I have have a high and low beam. I had one burn out after 3 years. the others are still going. Not sure how many hours they go. the most I have had one on is 24 hours, it is still going. Just a thought