Lights
- Thread starter Cameron_8
- Start date
I won't do it. I feel they need and deserve a break from egg laying. I got chickens so I knew I was getting eggs from healthy birds kept in the most natural and safe environment possible.
Hi, Cameron, welcome to the forum. Glad you joined.
What are your goals? Why do you want them to continue to lay? We keep chickens for all sorts of different reasons. For some people it makes a lot of sense to add lights and to keep them laying. For others not so much.
How old are yours? How long have they been laying? Many pullets that start laying in the fall don't stop their first winter but keep laying all the way through until the following fall even if you don't extend lights. Not all of them do that but many do.
What used to be a normal cycle for chickens is that they lay eggs and raise chicks in the good weather months, stop laying and replace worn out feathers when the weather starts to turn bad for raising chicks, and wait until the better days of spring to start raising families again. Since then we've domesticated them. They still have those basic instincts but they may not be as strong as they once were. We've bred them to lay a lot more eggs and not go broody, at least much. We feed them well year around, protect them from weather, and all that. Playing with lights is another way we mess up those basic instincts.
The triggers to stop laying and molt is the days getting shorter. Days getting longer is a signal good weather to raise chicks is returning. If we use lights to stop the days from getting shorter they don't know to molt. Some people add lights after the molt to get them started back laying earlier than they normally would.
If hens lay continuously eventually their bodies get worn out. They start laying less and the quality of the eggs they lay can drop. The molt is their chance to refresh their bodies. Once they go through their first adult molt they come back laying really well for another laying season. For a commercial egg laying flock that egg laying season is around 13 to 15 months. At that time the quality and production drops enough that they are no longer profitable. So they are forced to make a decision, replace them or put them through a molt to refresh them. Ours are not the commercial egg-laying hybrids especially bred for that. They still follow the same type of cycle but maybe not as tightly. Still, at some point they are going to have to molt. That's why a lot of us don't provide lights.
But some people have good reasons to add lights. Perhaps they have customers that they want to supply eggs to that time of the year, they can manage their flocks in a way to spread the production out. I had a discussion on here this morning with someone that wants hatching eggs pretty early in the spring. We are all different so my opinion is that we need to do what works for us. I don't know why you are considering adding lights or anything about your goals. I don't even know which side of the equator you are on. I can't tell you what to do. For my goals, set-up, and management techniques I do not mess with the lights but that does not mean that is the right answer for you.
What are your goals? Why do you want them to continue to lay? We keep chickens for all sorts of different reasons. For some people it makes a lot of sense to add lights and to keep them laying. For others not so much.
How old are yours? How long have they been laying? Many pullets that start laying in the fall don't stop their first winter but keep laying all the way through until the following fall even if you don't extend lights. Not all of them do that but many do.
What used to be a normal cycle for chickens is that they lay eggs and raise chicks in the good weather months, stop laying and replace worn out feathers when the weather starts to turn bad for raising chicks, and wait until the better days of spring to start raising families again. Since then we've domesticated them. They still have those basic instincts but they may not be as strong as they once were. We've bred them to lay a lot more eggs and not go broody, at least much. We feed them well year around, protect them from weather, and all that. Playing with lights is another way we mess up those basic instincts.
The triggers to stop laying and molt is the days getting shorter. Days getting longer is a signal good weather to raise chicks is returning. If we use lights to stop the days from getting shorter they don't know to molt. Some people add lights after the molt to get them started back laying earlier than they normally would.
If hens lay continuously eventually their bodies get worn out. They start laying less and the quality of the eggs they lay can drop. The molt is their chance to refresh their bodies. Once they go through their first adult molt they come back laying really well for another laying season. For a commercial egg laying flock that egg laying season is around 13 to 15 months. At that time the quality and production drops enough that they are no longer profitable. So they are forced to make a decision, replace them or put them through a molt to refresh them. Ours are not the commercial egg-laying hybrids especially bred for that. They still follow the same type of cycle but maybe not as tightly. Still, at some point they are going to have to molt. That's why a lot of us don't provide lights.
But some people have good reasons to add lights. Perhaps they have customers that they want to supply eggs to that time of the year, they can manage their flocks in a way to spread the production out. I had a discussion on here this morning with someone that wants hatching eggs pretty early in the spring. We are all different so my opinion is that we need to do what works for us. I don't know why you are considering adding lights or anything about your goals. I don't even know which side of the equator you are on. I can't tell you what to do. For my goals, set-up, and management techniques I do not mess with the lights but that does not mean that is the right answer for you.
I did a light source my first winter. When it came to the second winter, I decided to let the ladies take a break. I stock up on eggs from the warm months, freeze any eggs that I don’t sell, and I have eggs all winter long.
I'm also in the no lights camp. I miss the eggs, but I feel like my girls deserve to rest during the winter.
I use lights, but have learned to manage them so the birds still molt and take a break in the fall/winter. Usually start to increase the duration about mid December for a jump start for both eating and hatching eggs.
I've been adding lights inside and outside the coops for nearly 5 years.
I only add lights in the morning at 5 am year round.
I have found that chickens still molt and take a month or two off (no eggs) in their second winter.
My 3 Barred Rocks (28 months old) are in varying stages of molt and laid 5 eggs last month.
My 5 Red sex-links (8 months) are not molting and laying daily.
I have found that laying starts slowing in hens when available lights drop below 13 hours and a dramatic drop below 12.5 hours. Pullets continue to lay even when available lights drop to 11.25 hours, in my experience through 4 winters.
Look for bulbs with 2700 to 3000 Kelvin.
GC
I only add lights in the morning at 5 am year round.
I have found that chickens still molt and take a month or two off (no eggs) in their second winter.
My 3 Barred Rocks (28 months old) are in varying stages of molt and laid 5 eggs last month.
My 5 Red sex-links (8 months) are not molting and laying daily.
I have found that laying starts slowing in hens when available lights drop below 13 hours and a dramatic drop below 12.5 hours. Pullets continue to lay even when available lights drop to 11.25 hours, in my experience through 4 winters.
Look for bulbs with 2700 to 3000 Kelvin.
GC
I have an egg business, and that is why I got my first chickens a few years ago. I use shoplights plugged into a timer. The lights come on before light in the morning, and go off some hours after dark.
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