From what I have been reading, it seems that there is a 25 hr laying cycle.
I have 2 chickens that are 20 months old. A Plymouth Barred Rock and a New Hampshire Red.
Every day, I go out to the coop and turn the lights on at 3 am. They are already awake and waiting for me. Then in the afternoon, they put themselves to bed early......around 3:30 or 4pm. Dusk comes around 4:30 or so. They hang out on their roost ( awake ) until it gets dark.
I think I am giving them enough light to lay, and they have been giving me one to two eggs a day.
As usual, I went out this morning at 3 am to turn on the lights and found an egg on the floor of the coop with no shell....weird.
I am going to take it as a fluke egg for now since there has been no previous egg shell incidents and the shells are always hard.
What I am wondering about is, do chickens lay at night, because of that 25 hr cycle thing? Seems they have been laying earlier and earlier each day.
Two other things to note:
I have their coop light on a dimmer switch. I turn it all the way down before sunset, so they will go in at night. It sort of acts like a night light. It gives just barely enough light to see. I know chickens can't see in the dark, so I give them a tiny bit of light at night so they won't freak out if there is something that startles them. Is this too much light? Should I just shut it off at night?
Second thing to note: I am trying to break one of the girls bad habit of sleeping in the nesting box, so I have been closing it off at night and opening it back up in the morning at 3am when I go out there to turn on the lights. She is sleeping on the roost now, but I don't know how many days to do this to break the habit. It has only been 3 days so far.
Anyway, I guess my biggest question would be about the lighting situation and egg laying times. I have been trying to keep an exact routine for them every day. I guess I'm just a bit confused.
I have 2 chickens that are 20 months old. A Plymouth Barred Rock and a New Hampshire Red.
Every day, I go out to the coop and turn the lights on at 3 am. They are already awake and waiting for me. Then in the afternoon, they put themselves to bed early......around 3:30 or 4pm. Dusk comes around 4:30 or so. They hang out on their roost ( awake ) until it gets dark.
I think I am giving them enough light to lay, and they have been giving me one to two eggs a day.
As usual, I went out this morning at 3 am to turn on the lights and found an egg on the floor of the coop with no shell....weird.
I am going to take it as a fluke egg for now since there has been no previous egg shell incidents and the shells are always hard.
What I am wondering about is, do chickens lay at night, because of that 25 hr cycle thing? Seems they have been laying earlier and earlier each day.
Two other things to note:
I have their coop light on a dimmer switch. I turn it all the way down before sunset, so they will go in at night. It sort of acts like a night light. It gives just barely enough light to see. I know chickens can't see in the dark, so I give them a tiny bit of light at night so they won't freak out if there is something that startles them. Is this too much light? Should I just shut it off at night?
Second thing to note: I am trying to break one of the girls bad habit of sleeping in the nesting box, so I have been closing it off at night and opening it back up in the morning at 3am when I go out there to turn on the lights. She is sleeping on the roost now, but I don't know how many days to do this to break the habit. It has only been 3 days so far.
Anyway, I guess my biggest question would be about the lighting situation and egg laying times. I have been trying to keep an exact routine for them every day. I guess I'm just a bit confused.
