Lighting in the coop

[lauranickerson]

It's getting warm enough out now that my pullets (hatched mid-March and one pullet early-April) don't need them for heat at night. I've been turning them off during the warm days anyways, because it's reaching almost 80 here in Michigan some days (excepts when it snows the days following that

[that's Michigan for ya!]). BUT, there's been a night I forgot to turn it back on, and a couple nights ago when my power was out, leaving them with no lights in the coop at dark. I went out to the run expecting to only see my two ducks I manually put in the coop that don't know how to use the ramp yet, but found basically my whole flock still out in the run at dark (21 birds). This happens ONLY when the light is off in the coop. It's like they don't know how to get in through the big bird door or something when the lights aren't on! And it's annoying trying to chase them all in at dark!

I don't plan on keeping the light on hardly at all during the summer, even at night, but I surely don't want to be chicken wrangling every night in the dark!

Do you have to keep a light on? I know they pretty much go blind with no lights (which made picking them up not as bad since they didn't know what was going on). I never seemed to have trouble when I had chickens and ducks as a kid. I have a 100ft extension cord running to my coop that I'd love to get rid of this summer, but if coops must have a light, I'd like to look into solar or something, because a big yellow cord across the lawn is gaudy and annoying when mowing, and burying electricity really isn't on the top of the list/in the budget.

Any suggestions?


Also, this is unrelated, but worth a shot to ask instead of posted a whole new thread somewhere else:

I just switched to fermented feed a couple days ago, which seems to be going fine, but how much should I be giving 17 chickens and 4 ducks (the age listed in the first line). I've been giving about 5,6, maybe 7 cups in the morning, and a little a night..maybe half that. I use a rubber livestock dish...like one for horses/cattle...maybe 1ft across. Do they need more? Should I only feed once, even if it's more at one time? I heard feeding at night is better? Anyone have any advice on what works for them?

Sorry about all the questions. I'm not really 'new' to chickens, but had them as a kid, but wasn't fully responsible for them, and I plan to take care of them much better than my family did back then. Getting the hang of it again.

Thanks!

 

[pichuris]

So they like the light. Once they are in for the night turn the light off. Watch to see if they move outside after doing this. If they do wait till its a little later the next day or shut them in and then turn the light off. After a few days you shouldn't be having this problem. Chickens adapt pretty quickly.

As far as FF (by the way I'm feeding around 65 chickens on FF, yes really I don't know how many I have) this is what I do:
Morning they get enough feed they can eat in 20 minutes plus a little more. Then they free range all day and in the evening they get enough feed to eat in 20 minutes again. I don't let them have left overs they have to pick their bowl clean literally. We have lots of field mice and those are not in my feed budget.

Currently my chickens are eatting 5 coffee cans of feed per day (measured dry). And as you know it expands almost double. Winter its usually 6 but in the peak of bug season it will go down to 4.

 

[lauranickerson]

I'll try the light suggestion! Thanks! And WOW! That's a lot of chickens! Jealous!

I think I give them a little more than I said originally now that I actually paid attention this morning. But they went nuts and I only had time to sit there for a few minutes before going to work. I can definitely tell they eat less because I used to put about 3 coffee cans worth of dry in the dish and they would frenzy until it was gone. Now, I can see they eat for a couple minutes, then kind of wander around, not trying to get to the food as bad.

I'm loving the fermented feed so far! I didn't do the two bucket trick, but I think once I get my hands on another couple buckets, I'm going to try it, because a slotted kitchen spoon is a bit tedious and messy.


Thanks for the reply!

 

[pichuris]

Go to my profile to seecmy link on how my setup is.

 

[Mrwinchester]

So you say you use a extension cord eh! check these pictures out.



this was on my pool last summer the two ends were fused together.

also one time i was on a job sight we had a cord plugged into the generator all of a sudden the generator rev ed up like it was under a heavy load we looked and there were two foot flames shooting out of the end. I eliminated all my extension cords for this reason. Be careful

 

[lauranickerson]

So you say you use a extension cord eh! check these pictures out.



this was on my pool last summer the two ends were fused together.

also one time i was on a job sight we had a cord plugged into the generator all of a sudden the generator rev ed up like it was under a heavy load we looked and there were two foot flames shooting out of the end. I eliminated all my extension cords for this reason. Be careful

Yeah, my coop isn't close enough to the house and we can't really bury the electricity right now. My dad is a builder and has a really sturdy cord (about as thick as a garden hose) that's like 100ft long I think? Still going to be careful, and thanks for sharing! Going to have nightmares thinking about all that could happen!

 

[pichuris]

Yikes that is scary. Makes me put some things in perspective about how I'm going to do things in the new coop once it gets built.

 

[cary 1973]

we have out door bamboo lights in the coop (there like Christmas bulbs 12 of them) they are on a timer to go off at 10pm. My chickens never got the memo about going in when the sun went down so we just added some extra lights out side. now I can eliminate the lights and the girls would be fine but when the sun goes down that's when most of the bugs come out (roaches and water bugs) and my girls love them and we don't so its a added bounes to let them stay out at night also (knock on wood) this year not 1 black widow has been seen this is very un normal for this part of town along with other spiders not being sited so we choose to let the girls live it up at night esp when summer gets here. We live in Hell aka Las Vegas Nevada where you wont hear it on the news don't want to scare the tourist away but we hit 120+ so when the sun goes down its so much nicer for the girls.

So my point is the chickens don't need they will be fine with out it how ever it don't hurt them either to have it as long as the lighting source is safe and all precautions are taken not to burn the place down its totally up to the chicken parents what they perfur

 

[pichuris]

That's interesting thanks for the info Cary.