Should I use a light in the winter

[Erocka]

I hear that laying usually slows down significantly in the winter months due to lack of sunlight. I was thinking of adding some sort of lighting system on a timer to extend the hours of "daylight" for my chickens. Just wondering if anyone is doing this and if you recommend a specific type of light bulb to use. I have their old heat lamp from when they were chicks.. Would this be ok to use? Any tips would be awesome.. Oh and they are not laying yet (22 wks), but this is in hope that they start to soon!

Thanks

 

[Imp]

Adding light to extend the day & laying is your choice. A lot of people do add light and a lot do not. Any kind of light is OK and it doesn't need to be bright to work. You can use red, incandescent, CFL etc. If you do add light you want to increase the day to about 14 hours. Be super cautious with the light, don't want a fire.

Imp- does have light in the coop.

 

[woodmort]

There are a lot of threads under the management section on this topic. Basically if you live in an area where you are going to get less than 12 hrs of daylight in winter it will help egg production to add enough to bump it up to 14 hrs--we go to around 8. I use a 20w GE Bright Stick that is a rapid start florescent tube with its own bracket, cord and on/off switch which I plug into a dual timer to turn the lights on at 6am then off at 9 and on again at 4 off at 8 or so. I start it on September 1 and keep it going until the end of April. You don't need a lot of light nor will you need heat so this works perfectly.

 

[pgpoultry]

Always remember that if you do light the coop that your hens will not lay for as long a time as if you let them take their 'natural rest'.

Sandie

 

[33yardbirds]

With 23 layers I am still getting between 18 and 21 eggs a day. They should start slacking soon. I don't plan on pushing them with any lighting. I just let the natural cycle take it's course, and I'm hoping that maybe they will molt during the slack time. I can force a molt but I won't 'cause I just am not into behavior modification. I think now we are getting just about 12hrs of light a day.