Winterized the coop - Have a few questions

[speckledhen]

Quote:
I heard 14 hours and should be only added in mornings ... NOT AT NIGHT .

So , I am thinking if light is added , maybe put on timer for lights to come on say 4:30 AM til maybe around 7:00ish

Liz, 14 hours is what they need to keep producing eggs, but I suggest not allowing them anymore than 12 so they can rest. If you have birds prone to internal laying, adding light will almost guarantee they have that problem.

 

[cajunlizz]

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Why would you leave the LIGHTS on during daylight hours ?

 

[WoodlandWoman]

I wouldn't use the pipe heater on their perch. With a wide perch, roosting chickens will lower their bodies down over their feet when they're sleeping, covering their toes with their feathers to keep them warm.

I've read papers saying that providing lighting 24/7 is a bad idea, for various reasons. I think most people use anything from 12 to 14 hours. Parrot owners are always advised to provide 12 hours of dark, quiet sleep for optimal health in their birds.

At various times we've extended the day with lighting for chickens in the morning, at night and both in the morning and at night. The chickens were fine with all those options. So, we've tended to just go with what worked best for our schedule. I will say that waking them up from a sound sleep in the dark to do chicken chores after work, was very disturbing to them, even when we tried to do it gently. During those years of long commutes, evening lighting was definitely the better way to go for the chickens. Some would already be roosting, others would be milling around in the coop, when we got home.

Our lighting isn't super bright, but they can see to do whatever in the coop. The level of light in the coop is more like a cozy living room in the evening, rather than a brightly lit office. With morning light, they move kind of slow, as they slowly wake up. With evening light, they still come in at their usual time. They're active longer than they would be if it was dark. They usually go to roost well before the light turns off, though. Since they have windows in the coop, they can see that it's dark outside. They spend time eating and drinking, wander around a bit and go to roost.

In case you're wondering, I've watched them with a web cam.

 

[vttoad05452]

Quote:
Why would you leave the LIGHTS on during daylight hours ?

We just have the lights on in the non-daylight hours...just from 4:30 p.m. - 9 p.m. generally.
Donna

 

[cajunlizz]

OK , I read several places to extend the daylight hours of any day , you do so in early morning hours , Like 4:30 AM - 8:00 AM . Should never add to DUSK TIME HOURS . They go into coops at certain time , they roost at certain times . And they feel secure in the dark . Disrupting this DOWN TIME is only upsetting to them and makes them less secure .

 

[WoodlandWoman]

All I know is that my chickens really don't seem to care what gets done with their lighting. My last flock didn't care, either. They just putter around in the coop like a person in their house. They like their coop and their body language seems very relaxed to me. All the different theories on lighting all sound quite plausible to me. Mine just don't seem to care either way.

The things I'd worry about more when adding light, as far as chicken behavior goes, is how much space they have and whether or not they have food and water in the coop.

I think waking up chickens early, especially in an overcrowded coop with no food or water, could potentially cause problems. If you want to start their day early and they can't go outside because it's dark and the predators are out, then I think they need to be able to eat, drink and move out of each other's way inside the coop.

For an example, if you only allowed 1-2 square feet per chicken and have high strung birds or aggression problems already, waking them up early, then denying them food and water for the first few hours they are packed into a coop would not be the best way to go. In that case, it's better to let them sleep in.

That's not how I keep my chickens, but I know there are people that keep their chickens differently on the forum, than I do, so I just wanted to mention it as a potential problem.

 

[CityChook]

I'm just a newbie here, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I'm not sure I'd put a pipe heater on their roost. Is it metal? If so, then it WILL get cold. Maybe consider wood for their perch. A simple 2x4 will suffice. I'd be afraid of them getting burned or electricuted... or just messing with it to the point of starting a fire....
good luck!