Michigan

[Chickmate]

I just got home,Thursday is my extra long day at school this semester. Sure wish I had some beer in the house right now.

I did get the okay from my Bio-Stats prof to do a project on chicken eggs. I'm going to see if there is a stastical correlation between hours of daylight and egg laying. Anyone want to help? All you have to do is count your eggs each day and tell me how many you get. Today I got 3 eggs from 5 girls, yesterday was 5 for 5.

I take that data and relate it to available daylight (9 hrs, 19 mins yesterday and 9:21 today). See where I'm going with this?

The larger sample sizes I can draw from, the better the project will be. If anyone wants to help, please let me know.

Thanks.

I'm in.

RaZ's Project

Date

# of Eggs from 13 hens
Jan 1
6
Jan 2​

6
Jan 3​

6
Jan 4​

6
Jan 5​

4
Jan 6​

4
Jan 7​

4
Jan 8​

4
Jan 9​

6
Jan 10​

5
Jan 11​

3
Jan 12
5​

 

[RBahmer]

Raz, I just realized that you said no lights on timers. I guess I'm out then since I have a light come on one hour before dawn. If I didn't they would drop eggs on the poop boards.

oops leaves me out too. I have light on

 

[RaZ]

Quote:

You are right, I was making an assumption that the chickens are able to experience the natural light. Hopefully that won't be much of an issue.

 

[teeville5]

Raz- if I can remind myself to keep track, I'll do what I can to help. My girls are natural light only. In fact I can start you off for today with 6 eggs for 28 hens.
Mind, that is the highest number of eggs I've had in weeks. I usually average 1-3 so I was pretty excited to see what I got today. 1 was even a white egg from one of my leghorns which I haven't seen in about 2 months. YAY! Now if they would just keep it up...

 

[taprock]

teeville - I have 28 hens right now also!

RaZ - wish I could help but my light pops on at 4:30 each morning. And if it's a dark day I leave it on past 8 since I only have two small windows in my large coop. For my girls I think the light makes some difference but I think timing is more - as in when they molted. I have had the light on since November and the egg production has not started to pick up until this week.

 

[Chickmate]

You are right, I was making an assumption that the chickens are able to experience the natural light. Hopefully that won't be much of an issue.

Not an issue for me. I turned the light off a couple of weeks ago because it didn't seem to make any difference in the production. They are in natural light 24/7.

 

[RBahmer]

theron - what a beautiful puppy. I want it. lol

 

[Hillbilly Hen]

I have 29 hens, the NH's and EE's are molting, the BR's haven't laid since I moved them but the Delawares and Black Austrolorps are laying like crazy, the Icelandics are starting to pick up the pace, 15 eggs today!

 

[yorkchick]

OK, perhaps third time is the charm. Two other posts have disappeared when I hit "submit." And boy, were they both riveting and hilarious. Gone, gone, gone. Unless they magically show up. Because I am clueless here. Gonna hit submit. Gonna hit it with fingers crossed.

 

[yorkchick]

Well, look at that. Didn't even have to stand on my head while singing the Star Spangled Banner. And those other posts were not really so great. They were just, how shall I say it, extended. Especially the first one. Which to summarize, was my experiences with light, egg laying, and age of chickens. I have my coop light on a timer, or I'd be glad to give you data, Raz. But the majority of my girls are almost three years old now. Their first winter, when they'd just started laying, I had the timer set to give them 15 hours a day of light. The second year, I changed the programming to on at dawn/off at dusk-plus-one-hour, and that's the schedule I've stuck to. The first winter all the hens layed steadily all winter. The second winter, my BSL Maude refused to take a break although everyone else took a few months off. This year, even Maude stopped laying before Thanksgiving. So in my limited experience, it's age and hours of daylight and breed/individual capacity.

Of the four pullets hatched end of June last year, I wasn't really expecting any eggs until spring. But Norma, the Speckled Sussex, started laying at the end of December. So clearly the daylight hours not such a big deal for her, but seem to be for the other three pullets. But I won't be surprised if Norma's laying is affected by lack of daylight hours in future years.

That's most of what I wanted to say in my first attempt. It's considerably shorter in this version, though...