The coop in the shade.

[Impress]

I have a large coop I built last year, it is portable in that it can be moved if you attach a tow strap to it and drag it with a car. I moved it near my house in the fall, a shady area, not too shady, but not in sunlight all day, my house is to the West, and a shady tree area is to the East.

Fall hit and boom, no eggs. I assumed my Speckled Sussex was eating eggs, so I have been waiting it out. Bought a new flock of Giant Cochins, and decided to move the SS into the pasture and make the shady coop the Cochin coop. So two days later, the SS is giving me eggs again. I took the waterproof material off of the run, which was blocking a lot of the sun, and I understand that it is going to take the new flock a while to settle in, but how long should I wait it out before I give in and move that coop?

I figured with Cochins not handling heat well, a shady coop would be best for them. But now I am concerned that will be my eggless coop of gloom.

 

[animallover505]

Hey! I'm in Tn, too! They definitely need light to lay well, but I never add extra light, Cochins aren't the best layers in the first place,

 

[Impress]

That is the thing, they do get light, just not a ton of direct, in your face light. And the shade from my house hits them around 6 in the afternoon currently. I just ain't sure how long I should wait for eggs before I go through the horrid hassle of moving that coop. It would probably be easier to cut down the tree.:/

 

[animallover505]

That is the thing, they do get light, just not a ton of direct, in your face light. And the shade from my house hits them around 6 in the afternoon currently. I just ain't sure how long I should wait for eggs before I go through the horrid hassle of moving that coop. It would probably be easier to cut down the tree.

probably

 

[centrarchid]

Leave tree up. Photoperiod at least as important as intensity when comes to stimulating egg production. That tree will be an invaluable source of shade when heat of summer returns.

 

[Impress]

That is what I am thinking, that once the warm hits here they will lay like happy little chickens. It is so hard to be patient when I have an incubator to fill and a coop full of beautiful black and blue giant Cochins!