Lighting or Not?

[Tomfieldenloveshichickens]

I have 5 rir chickens at 26 weeks old and they haven't laid yet. I an thinking of putting light in the coop to help them start laying. I feed them laying pellets. What do you think?

A few questions

When shall I put the light on?
How much will it cost?
What power light do I need?

Thanks

 

[secuono]

It's winter, so without the light, they will wait until spring, I believe.
I'm thinking of adding a light to my coop when we figure out how the power to the barn works. I was going to have it on from 6:30am until 6 or even 7pm. I was going to add a 75watt house bulb. If it's a regular bulb, it shouldn't add too much $ to your bill.

 

[spartacus_63]

I am a believer in artificially light and use a shop light on a timer. They get good sunlight during the day and the timer comes on prior to sunset and extends the light to 12 to 14 hours. I normally get good consistent egg numbers with my RIR & BO egg machines.

 

[Denninmi]

Last year, I started lighting them on October 1st, and increased the length I left the light on as the daylength decreased.

This year, I didn't bother, and the girls started laying again late Sept/early Oct. after their full moult. The new ones that are now six months old have started to lay in the past week or so. No lights, and I'm getting lots of eggs.

Who knows. It can't hurt, that's for sure. I just never got around to stringing the light in Sept, and said "what the heck." I can't begin to use all of the eggs I get anyway, so if I get fewer, not a problem.

 

[dandelionheart]

I've read (on here) that you should add the extra light in the morning because it plunges them into darkness if the lights suddenly go off in the evening and they have problems seeing and getting to their roost... and that added stress could limit egg production (and not be very nice to your chickies). Our light goes on at about 3:30am and then dusk falls around 5pm for us (and I've seen them on the roost at 4:15pm).

I don't think the artificial light is helping much... our pullets lay about 5 eggs each a week and our RIR lays about two a week... and none from the BOs.

I've even tried pepper powder.

 

[speckledhen]

Personal decision. After losing many hens to internal laying/egg peritonitis over the past two or three years, I don't push mine at all to keep going and just allow their natural rhythms to determine when they lay. No one really knows how it affects them as far as their health and I've never heard of a study that has been done on the link between artificial lighting and reproductive issues--could be there is no correlation, but after my experience, I feel better not adding light here, I'm sure you can understand.

That said, in certain areas like Alaska, it's a necessity to give artificial light.

 

[swimmer]

My girls are about the same age. They just started laying about two weeks ago. After I added light. Not sure it has anything to do with the lighting. I have the light go on around 4:00 a.m. Turns off about 7:30. So about 13 hours or so of light. Not as much as some do, but gives them some more light. You will get many opinions about this topic. I use a 5 foot strand of x-mas lights connected to a timer. Not sure how much it will cost you, but it doesn't have to be super bright.