Red Heat Lamp versus White Light

[BeccaSmith]

Hubby and I are supplementing light for our girls so they will continue to lay. We also have a red heat lamp that we use on super cold nights, we leave the red heat lamp on all night long, but the regular white light bulb is on a timer. Hubby and I are wondering if we bought a white heat lamp bulb to provide heat instead of using the red and to supplement light but leave it on all night long, if it would mess the girls up a far as not having a night time for rest? Do the hens need a certain amount of darkness for rest at night? And would the red heat lamp be disrupting their rest like a white light would? We are limited to our outlets to plug electrical devices in and are trying to figure out the best set up. TIA!

-Becca-

 

[Imp]

The only difference I have ever heard between red & white is that white light might increase pecking problems. I'm not so sure that it is true. Doesn't cause pecking with any of the chickens I've had.

A lot of people are opposed to having light or heat in the coop. I was told when I first got chicks, by an old chicken farmer, that if you supplemented light, 24 hours a day was best. I have done that for many years and never had any problems. They sleep just fine with the light on.

Imp

 

[mstricer]

Quote:
Becca, you don't need to supplement heat for your girls, when I first got chickens I did the same thing, added lighting for continued egg laying, then I read they need a break, it can cause problems. There are chickens that are good layers and will lay no mater what amount of lighting they have. Here is a chart of chickens, type, hardiness, color eggs how many eggs etc.....Michele
http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html

 

[BeccaSmith]

Thank you for your replies! Our girls just started laying at the end of August and early September so I figured it would be ok to keep the laying through the winter. I think we will try taking the the heat lamp away and the supplemental lighting away and see what happens. We only get 8 to 10 eggs out of the 11 girls we have right now and that variation is with the supplemental lighting. We built our coop and it is pretty drafty so we are going to try and get rid of some of the area's the wind is coming in from because the wind blows directly into the coop during the winter. In the summer the wind blows a different direction so whatever we "button up" on the coop will be able to taken down/off for the summer, or during the winter if we feel we need more air circulation. We will monitor it as the winter goes, but we get down into the teens, sometimes single digits for the winter and it doesn't go above freezing for a good month or two during winter. Anyways, now I am just blabbing on, I appreciate the feedback! It makes me feel a little better about not supplementing the heat and light. Oh and I forgot to mention that I was supplementing the light because I read it could be done to keep egg laying production from going down.

 

[Fred's Hens]

I use a little supplemental lighting. I don't mind saying. We are so far north that our days get down to only 7 hours of sunlight. Too dark. I light from 5 am to about 9 am, just to keep them laying a bit. We have an egg business and cannot have production totally cease. This amount of light supplement only adds 3 hours to a 7 hour day, so the total is only 10 hours. This is hardly pushing them.

I do not heat. No way I can afford to do so. We have a chicken barn that is 20x24. No way to heat that!!

Our lows go to -20 and the rare -30. We go two months of permafrost, no highs above freezing. The hens do just fine. We keep cold hardy breeds and the barn is bone dry, which is important, and the eaves are wide open for ventilation. Hope this information helps you draw your own best conclusions for your own flock.