lighting and space question

If it's causing them confusion I'd go ahead and remove it. Personally, I'm not a big fan of forcing egg production to begin with but in addition to that if you acclimate them to the heat from the light and your power goes off mid-winter it could make things quite rough for them as they didn't get the opportunity to acclimate slowly to the cold.

 

One possibility, if you really really want to use the lights, is to put them on only once a day (for, at the moment, two hours at a time) instead of splitting the lit time between morning AND evening. I don't know where you live but if you do it only in the morning (pre-dawn), that also gives you a heat boost at the time of day when they need it most.

That is a very bright light for such a small coop, also I would worry about safety (not clear to me how it is attached, I am *hoping* not just clipped onto something, but moreover there is nothing preventing a chicken bumping into it and either burning her comb -- yes, they DO stand their with their combs against a lightbulb til they get burnt, sometimes -- or breaking the bulb and starting a fire from the hot filament).

Personally I would not do the light. Ta da, problem solved.

If you feel you *have* to get all possible eggs you can out of the hens -- like if economics is a big consideration -- you might at least consider switching to a lower wattage bulb. All's you need is something bright enough to read a newspaper by. Also possibly aim it at a wall rather than right into the chickens' eyes -- it would annoy ME being in that coop with the lightbulb blaring in my eyes no matter where I was, although I can't prove that chickens necessarily feel the same

Good luck, have fun,

Pat