Lighting help

[dchurch]

New to chickens here.. Just built my first pen inside one of our barns, as of right now the birds don't have much access to natural light, windows on the other side of barn.ive put a fixture in their coop with a 13 watt cf bulb, on a timer to give then 15 hours of light, is this sufficient? Plans are to cut a window in their coop, and when snow melts against side of barn, give then a door to free range outside..... Maybe a week or so before this is done. I have 14, year old leghorns from a commercial layer operation, first 2 days, 10 eggs, day 3 just 7.... Concerned I'm notgiviving them enought light, and don't want them to go dormant on me..... Suggestions?

 

[Judy]

They may just be reacting to the change in environment, which is a shock to chickens. That's not much light. I would try to find a way to let some natural light in now. Also, somewhere I've read that old fashioned incandescent light bulbs, even lower wattages, work much better than cf. You could cut a hole for light and just cover it with hardware cloth against predators. You could even make a simple wooden shutter to keep out storms if it's upwind.