Shine a Spotlight from My Window into Coop

[aart]

Quote: I'l have to do some searching here on the CFL for winter laying.

I used CFL last winter, as I look back on my records over the winter it appears to have been at least partially effective....

All the pullets laid all winter, except one who was molting at 9 months for some reason, and several of the older birds laid reliably all winter, but some had been screwed up with their molt from using light the winter before and were also molting during part of the winter.

.....but really hard to know because of other variables, and ya can't test 2 techniques at the same time in the same environment.
I will probably use it again this coming winter....with chickens there's always an ebb and flow that can't be reliably predicted or totally controlled.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

To get a good cross section it would look to me like you would need 9 groups of laying hens. All raised in the same flocks and picked at random for the experiment. 3 groups of pullets, 3 groups of 1 year old hens, and three groups of 2 year old hens. Each of these 3 age classes would be subdivided into a CFL lighted flock, an incandescent lighted (UV) flock and a flock with no supplemental lighting. To iron out the differences in molting behavior the experiment would need to run for 365 consecutive days.

To make the cheese more binding it would also be nice to do the same experiment with 3 or 4 different laying breeds or strains, all in the same years and location to even out the total hours of daylight and darkness. That's too much to me like being a real chicken farmer again, PM me with your findings..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_molting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_husbandry

 

[aart]

To get a good cross section it would look to me like you would need 9 groups of laying hens. All raised in the same flocks and picked at random for the experiment. 3 groups of pullets, 3 groups of 1 year old hens, and three groups of 2 year old hens. Each of these 3 age classes would be subdivided into a CFL lighted flock, an incandescent lighted (UV) flock and a flock with no supplemental lighting. To iron out the differences in molting behavior the experiment would need to run for 365 consecutive days.

To make the cheese more binding it would also be nice to do the same experiment with 3 or 4 different laying breeds or strains, all in the same years and location to even out the total hours of daylight and darkness. That's too much to me like being a real chicken farmer again, PM me with your findings..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_molting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_husbandry

We often think alike.....If I had the facilities to do that, I would seriously consider it.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

We often think alike.....If I had the facilities to do that, I would seriously consider it.

"We often think alike....." That is the best thing that you've ever said to me, thanks.

You could accomplish it with only 3 identical structures with each structure housing 300 cage layers. 100 birds from each age class of hens or pullets each housed in her own separate cage in each house with a different form of lighting.

Then do like the family and I did at one time, mount a 1X4 board on top of each cage and staple a 4X6 index card with 365 small squares on top of the 1X4 to note each egg laid by the hen who is housed directly below the index card, recorded by filling or coloring in the square corresponding to the day (from day 1 to day 365) that each new egg was laid. You also need some way to ensure that the egg from one cage can't make it over to a neighboring hens' cage but bailing wire works well for that purpose.

Good luck because my all time best White Leghorn hen laid 365 eggs in as many days with Incandescent (UV) lighting and unlimited feed. She went back to the hatchery and I never learned her fate. Three hundred and twenty to three hundred-forty-five eggs per year was a very common lay rate. For the life of me I forgot the yearly average rate.

I got to go now, I have a new Life Below Zero recorded and I want to watch it. Keep your powder dry but your laying mash drier.

 

[aart]

Quote:

Oh Yeah sure like WhereTF am I going to get that?!?!?!