Research on Chicken Behavior tied to daylight and egg production?

[sheaviance1]

I wonder if she could use the "How many eggs you get today" thread, sort it by person and date and use that as some of her evidence. I'm not sure how many people would post there daily, but it could be worth a shot. Has she decided what age group of chickens she will be studying? I only ask that because a new layer will lay consistently all winter, but depending on how new they are, it may still be sporadic. She could start her own thread on here, ask for participants, and have them post their results daily. She would need a lot of information, like weather conditions, how old they are, where they live, whether artificial lighting is used, etc.

 

[centrarchid]

Quote:
Yes,

Every effort should be made to make conditions consistent except variable of interest (lighting).

How many birds will be involved? How many pens can be set up with differing amounts of lighting?

 

[crazychickenldy]

While chickens have been domesticated for thousands of years, their widespread introduction to other latitudes is still relatively recent, as speaking of animal evolution or adaptation. Most biologists place the chicken as an equatorial fowl, meaning daylight was fairly constant. Mankind took the chicken to latitudes where daylight swings between 18 hours of sunlight in the far northern US in summer to less than 6 hours of winter time sunlight.

Chickens, like all creatures, need sleep, of course, but leveling out the hours daylight, to a more consistent 14 hours, could even be seen as a positive thing. I do believe that 8-10 hours of total darkness is a good thing.While chickens have been domesticated for thousands of years, their widespread introduction to other latitudes is still relatively recent, as speaking of animal evolution or adaptation. Most biologists place the chicken as an equatorial fowl, meaning daylight was fairly constant. Mankind took the chicken to latitudes where daylight swings between 18 hours of sunlight in the far northern US in summer to less than 6 hours of winter time sunlight.

Chickens, like all creatures, need sleep, of course, but leveling out the hours daylight, to a more consistent 14 hours, could even be seen as a positive thing. I do believe that 8-10 hours of total darkness is a good thing.

Fred, Thank you for the information. I do not see any signs that my chickens are sleep deprived, they are excellent layers and are not broody, and are docile. I was told that too much darkness will cause them to moult, so we tried a low watt regular lightbulb which is not super bright. It seems to work for us. Plus we have a large shed size hen house. The ceilings are high, which would disperse the brightness of the light even further. It never occurred to me that chickens need total darkness in order to sleep. We kept them under bright heat lamps when they were younger and they slept when they were tired. I have witnessed them sleeping in the hen house with the overhead dim light.

However, based on the information you provided to me, I may consider turning out the light in the evening just to see if it benefits them. You gave me something to think about. Thank you again for the great info!