I need to harness the combined genius of RT

[Cottie]

Our chicken coop/pig pen is +/- 250 feet from the nearest (working) electric box.

It has no light.

Today, we decided to cage up the laying hens to force them to lay inside the building (instead of wherever they felt like dropping out an egg in the yard).

They need light to lay. Solar isn't an option.

Ideas?

 

[MaggieJ]

They don't need a lot of light to lay. Mine usually lay right through the winter except for a few weeks off in January. Young hens will lay right through with no problems.

Why is solar not an option? Solar lights are cheap. Charge them up outdoors in the daytime and carry them onto the coop in the evening when you feed them.

 

[Mary Ann's Rabbitry]

I hope you meant pen up not cage up.. Maggie is right.. I don't use lights in my barn and they still lay no problem..

 

[MamaSheepdog]

A lot of the heavier bodied birds like Black Australorps and Orpingtons lay in the winter.

I had the same thought as Maggie- solar pathway lights would provide plenty of light. You can get them at the 99cent store or Harbor Freight.

 

[Cottie]

They don't need a lot of light to lay. Mine usually lay right through the winter except for a few weeks off in January. Young hens will lay right through with no problems.

Why is solar not an option? Solar lights are cheap. Charge them up outdoors in the daytime and carry them onto the coop in the evening when you feed them.

We go days without any real amount of sunlight during the winter. It's an option in the Spring thru Fall, but there's windows in there then. Since they're only going to be confined for a week, maybe two, I'd rather go with something that is guaranteed to work.

I hope you meant pen up not cage up.. Maggie is right.. I don't use lights in my barn and they still lay no problem..

They're in a chicken wire pen. Cage/pen...same thing to me, sorry.

They're not heavy breeds. They're just layers.

 

[Bad Habit]

I dunno about there, but at our dollar stores here, you can often get LED lights that are battery operated

 

[skysthelimit]

I was thinking the same thing. From what I studied, they need very little light, about as much light as you would need to read print in the dark, I think the study said. LED are enough. One of those closet tap lights, if the batteries don't freeze. I never got to try it, because my coop was much closer to the house, so I had timed floodlights shine from the house.

 

[bobqdevon]

Did you try checking Menards? They have a bunch of battery operated LED lights that could help you. I'm pretty sure that they have a store near you.

 

[Cottie]

I dunno about there, but at our dollar stores here, you can often get LED lights that are battery operated

I was thinking the same thing. From what I studied, they need very little light, about as much light as you would need to read print in the dark, I think the study said. LED are enough. One of those closet tap lights, if the batteries don't freeze. I never got to try it, because my coop was much closer to the house, so I had timed floodlights shine from the house.

I wasn't sure that was enough light. I'd previously been told they basically need daylight for 12 to 14 hours. :shock: If just enough to see will do, I feel really stupid for asking. :lol:

 

[Miss M]

That's all the light needed to keep them going? Wow, I thought it needed to be bright.

I think ours have mostly stopped laying also because they've got avian pox right now. Dratted mosquitoes. We were considering putting some light out there to increase laying, and then they started sprouting bumps. :roll:

So if that's all the light they need, then the solar lights I have in there right now might be enough. They're just inexpensive solar floods -- not bright like you usually think of floodlights, but they help.

I dunno about there, but at our dollar stores here, you can often get LED lights that are battery operated

I was thinking the same thing. From what I studied, they need very little light, about as much light as you would need to read print in the dark, I think the study said. LED are enough. One of those closet tap lights, if the batteries don't freeze. I never got to try it, because my coop was much closer to the house, so I had timed floodlights shine from the house.

I wasn't sure that was enough light. I'd previously been told they basically need daylight for 12 to 14 hours. :shock: If just enough to see will do, I feel really stupid for asking. :lol:

No, that's what I thought, too. I thought I needed to make it daytime out there!

 

[mystang89]

Mine definitely need 12 to 14 hrs of light to lay or I get nothing. I just have an extention cord running from the nearest outlet to an extent ion light. Basically a light on a cord. Turn it on each night and we're good.

 

[Mickey328]

We have red sexlinks, and they'll lay through the winter but with only 8 to 10 hours of light, production falls drastically. The coop is only about 60 feet from the house though so we also run an extension cord from the outside outlet to a 25 watt bulb inside the coop. It's on a timer so it comes on in the wee hours and shuts off at sunrise...we change the timer so they get about 16 hrs of light per day.

Ours seem to go through the avian pox all the time, LOL...doesn't seem to affect production, though. Molting sure does and it seems there's always 1 or 2 in one stage or another.

 

[Dood]

A lot if study has gone into how much light laying hens need so the egg farmers electric bill is a small as possible

And they really don't need much, here is an article on it - http://www.agriculture.gov.sk.ca/5602-Leaf

They need 10-20 lux which is the same as 1-2 foot candles (I know it might as well be Greek, but hopefully someone at the hardware store will understand) and LED will work great.

 

[Frosted Rabbits]

I found that the Solar panels used for charging/maintaining car batteries work very well at producing power even in very low light situations-- Get a couple deep cycle batteries, a power inverter, and you can actually use a full fledged 40 watt light bulb on a timer. One 40 watt bulb per 100 sf of floor space is sufficient to maintain laying over the winter.

 

[OneAcreFarm]

What about those rechargeable camp lanterns? My Mama Kathryn and Pops used those in their cabin in Idaho for light at night....

 

[Cottie]

Chicken lady was pretty sure light wasn't the issue. She thought maybe it was the feed. I'm running an experiment to see if my homemade feed does better than the commercial. So far, I'm preferring the results of the homemade (1 egg vs 0 eggs, and less messy poop).

If we start to get eggs by 12/19 (the end of the experiment), we're going to use the feed that was the most productive and start making minor modifications (such as adding oyster shells for added calcium) to see if it improves things. We'll probably also construct some better/larger pens for them. At least I don't need to feel bad about depriving them of free-ranging when there's so much snow on the ground.

 

[zee]

I always thought the light needed to be bright too.