thinking about having my chickens lay through winter but have a ??

[littleleeranch]

im thinking of trying to have my hens lay through winter but i dont have electricity ran out where the pens are....so i put out a few flashlights shining down in their pens....do you think this will work??....also i decided not to put nestboxes in a few pens and just wondering if the chickens will still lay as good without the boxes as they would with the boxes?? thanks very much look forward to your help

 

[Ohhhdear]

Seems like you'd be going through a lot of flashlight batteries. Chickens need 14+ hours daylight to keep laying well. Usually the lights are on timers, adding a few hours more in both the morning and evening to stretch out the day length.

For the cost of a winter's worth of flashlight batteries you could get a solar panel powered light if you don't want to run power to your coop. I've seen them at Menards, and there's lots of places online you could Google.

I think it's a nesting instinct that chickens use to go into a quiet dark place to lay their eggs. Without a nest box, a penned hen might be more agitated and looking for someplace like a nest box to lay into until the bodily urge to lay just can't be ignored anymore.

 

[pgpoultry]

Personally I would not try to ensure egg laying throughout the winter as hens will lay a finite number of eggs. Causing them to lay in the winter will mean that the length of time they will lay for will be shortened.

Hens will lay on the floor of a coop if they do not have a nest box, but then there is the risk of the others trampling the eggs.

Sandie

 

[Chicken Delight]

I am curious if anyone has experience with white LED lighting for increasing egg-laying during winter months. I have read that it works, but not sure about the amount of lighting required. If it did work, then the solar landscape lights sold at any home improvement store would be a cheap and effective way to light the coop (I picked a couple up for less than $4.00 each the other day). The only trick for some would be to have the charging element in the sun during the day while the light is in the coop. The lights come on when it is dark and run till the charge is gone.

If white LED light works, then this would be a great solution not requiring electricity being run to the coop.