Lighting in coop and run

[Jo Plescow]

Hi everyone, I have some questions about lighting in the coop/run. My chickens are just a few weeks away from laying age and I’ve been confused and getting mixed answers on how long chickens need total darkness at night for best egg production. I live in Arizona where there’s no daylight savings so the summer days don’t stay light as long as most other states and it gets dark around 7:30. It seems early and the chickens go from 7:30 to 5:30 in their coop and I wasn’t sure if that was too much darkness or not enough. I hung some string lights in the run a few days ago and when I turn them on I noticed the chickens seemed totally confused and were in and out of the coop until almost 10pm! So I’m thinking the string lights are a no go but I also have a light inside the coop that I’m not sure if it’s necessary to turn on for them once it’s dark and they head inside for a bit. Any help would be great. Now I know this isn’t ideal but my set up is that I leave their coop house door open so they come and go into the run as they please. Quite honestly I don’t want to get up at 5am to let them out and they seem (until I got their string lights) to stay in the house the entire time and they seem comfortable with the door open. Automatic door batteries won’t last long in the hot Arizona sun so that’s not really an option either. I know there is a concern for predators but we built the coop deep about 2 feet into the ground all around and we have concrete walls surrounding our whole yard deep into the middle of a huge subdivision. So large predators simply won’t make their way all the way into my yard. My biggest predator threat is neighborhood cats but I’m confident in my coops structure that no animal will ever make it in. Any feed back on what I’m doing would be really helpful! This is my first time and I’m still trying to figure out the best routine for my babies to be happy

 

[SwissHouse]

Coop lighting is really only for the winter months to trick them into not slowing down laying in the winter. debate is still out on that being good to do or not, at least personally. In the summer you don't really need lights, as you would generally only have them on for a couple extra hours on the edges of sunrise and set. I think the bigger thing you need to solve is that you really should be closing the door at night. Everything loves chicken. I personally lost 2 hens to raccoons learning the lesson that I need to make the coop(different from the run) fort knox. I guarantee there is something out there worse than a cat that wants a chance at a free chicken dinner.
Looking at the picture you sent, it looks like the wire you are using to enclose the run is chicken wire. That stuff should only be considered good for containing chickens. Many predators can get through it. you need to use hardware cloth and some more cross beams, or some welded wire fence to keep things out. I don't know how badly batteries fare out there, but if the life is even 33% of normal, you are still looking at ~3 months of operation. then get some rechargeables, and off you go. Securing the coop is preferable to securing the run and coop generally, though given the smaller wire area to cover its more of a tossup.

 

[Jo Plescow]

Coop lighting is really only for the winter months to trick them into not slowing down laying in the winter. debate is still out on that being good to do or not, at least personally. In the summer you don't really need lights, as you would generally only have them on for a couple extra hours on the edges of sunrise and set. I think the bigger thing you need to solve is that you really should be closing the door at night. Everything loves chicken. I personally lost 2 hens to raccoons learning the lesson that I need to make the coop(different from the run) fort knox. I guarantee there is something out there worse than a cat that wants a chance at a free chicken dinner.
Looking at the picture you sent, it looks like the wire you are using to enclose the run is chicken wire. That stuff should only be considered good for containing chickens. Many predators can get through it. you need to use hardware cloth and some more cross beams, or some welded wire fence to keep things out. I don't know how badly batteries fare out there, but if the life is even 33% of normal, you are still looking at ~3 months of operation. then get some rechargeables, and off you go. Securing the coop is preferable to securing the run and coop generally, though given the smaller wire area to cover its more of a tossup.

I appreciate the help with the lighting! What I meant to say about the predators is there are certainly far more than just cats, however im in the deep center of a very large subdivision with 8 foot brick wall fencing lines. So the only predator I’ve ever seen come as far deep into my yard is the next door neighbors cat. My area doesn’t even get scorpions or tarantulas let alone a wild animal making it’s way this far into a neighborhood. The sub is then surrounded by 2 main highways then several miles north is desert mountains. I used to live in Michigan where raccoons and opossums and squirrels were at every corner but in Phoenix I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen a raccoon here yet. I know it’s still a possibility to have something come to my yard, but my worries are low after only having one or two friendly cats come by after 3 years. Plus I have two cameras one in the coop and one in the run that send me alerts with movement! I know car batteries here last like 1/3rd of the life than other states so I just assumed small little AA batteries wouldn’t stand a chance but I guess it doesn’t hurt to try!

 

[PoleFarm]

I appreciate the help with the lighting! What I meant to say about the predators is there are certainly far more than just cats, however im in the deep center of a very large subdivision with 8 foot brick wall fencing lines. So the only predator I’ve ever seen come as far deep into my yard is the next door neighbors cat. My area doesn’t even get scorpions or tarantulas let alone a wild animal making it’s way this far into a neighborhood. The sub is then surrounded by 2 main highways then several miles north is desert mountains. I used to live in Michigan where raccoons and opossums and squirrels were at every corner but in Phoenix I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen a raccoon here yet. I know it’s still a possibility to have something come to my yard, but my worries are low after only having one or two friendly cats come by after 3 years. Plus I have two cameras one in the coop and one in the run that send me alerts with movement! I know car batteries here last like 1/3rd of the life than other states so I just assumed small little AA batteries wouldn’t stand a chance but I guess it doesn’t hurt to try!

Here raccoons live and travel in the strom drains. But ifvthey were snooping around your camera would catch them. I have a doe here who likes to gives the camera kisses.