Light is very important to egg production. Length of day is less important than many think though, people that live near the equator don't ever get much more than 12 hours of light a day, their nights never get much shorter than 12 hours a day, yet their chickens still follow the standard cycle. Length of day is still important, but what has the biggest effect is the days getting longer or shorter. Where you are in upstate New York you'll have a fairly large swing in that.
Feathers wear out and need to be replaced. Food is more plentiful in warmer weather than over winter so it's easier to raise chicks in warmer weather. Chickens evolved to lay eggs and hatch chicks when the days were getting longer or were still pretty long. Right now my days are noticeably getting shorter but are still pretty long. I still have hens going broody. That will stop pretty soon though as the days get shorter. Eventually they will quit laying and molt.
When days get shorter the chicken stops laying eggs and molts, using what nutrients she finds to regrow feathers instead of using them for eggs. When the days get longer in the spring she starts laying again and hatches chicks when food is more plentiful. That's the natural cycle.
But we've changed that for most of them by domesticating them. We've bred chickens to lay a lot more eggs than they used to and to not go broody nearly as much. Instead of the food value going down in winter we feed them really well all year around. Since we feed them they eat better in summer than they used to. If you provide lights and good food they may even go broody in the winter if they end to go broody. Many things have changed but one thing hasn't, they still tend to molt and quit laying when the days get shorter.
I don't know what the right length of day is for you. If you select the longest day you'll be providing lights the entire year. I don't extend my lights but as LG said that's your business, not mine. 14 hours is probably not a bad number for you though you might be able to get away with less. Using Buffalo as a guide you'd need to start lights in mid-August and keep them on until the end of April, other wise they will experience nights shorter than 14 hours, which might or might not trigger a molt. You can probably get away with a shorter window of providing lights but I don't know what it is.
Again, I don' do it myself but if I did I'd use LG's method, on at a certain time in the morning and off a certain time at night. That's just so much simpler than regularly adjusting the start time in the morning.
Feathers wear out and need to be replaced. Food is more plentiful in warmer weather than over winter so it's easier to raise chicks in warmer weather. Chickens evolved to lay eggs and hatch chicks when the days were getting longer or were still pretty long. Right now my days are noticeably getting shorter but are still pretty long. I still have hens going broody. That will stop pretty soon though as the days get shorter. Eventually they will quit laying and molt.
When days get shorter the chicken stops laying eggs and molts, using what nutrients she finds to regrow feathers instead of using them for eggs. When the days get longer in the spring she starts laying again and hatches chicks when food is more plentiful. That's the natural cycle.
But we've changed that for most of them by domesticating them. We've bred chickens to lay a lot more eggs than they used to and to not go broody nearly as much. Instead of the food value going down in winter we feed them really well all year around. Since we feed them they eat better in summer than they used to. If you provide lights and good food they may even go broody in the winter if they end to go broody. Many things have changed but one thing hasn't, they still tend to molt and quit laying when the days get shorter.
I don't know what the right length of day is for you. If you select the longest day you'll be providing lights the entire year. I don't extend my lights but as LG said that's your business, not mine. 14 hours is probably not a bad number for you though you might be able to get away with less. Using Buffalo as a guide you'd need to start lights in mid-August and keep them on until the end of April, other wise they will experience nights shorter than 14 hours, which might or might not trigger a molt. You can probably get away with a shorter window of providing lights but I don't know what it is.
Again, I don' do it myself but if I did I'd use LG's method, on at a certain time in the morning and off a certain time at night. That's just so much simpler than regularly adjusting the start time in the morning.
