What is your opinion? Should hens be encouraged to lay eggs year round with additional light or other means or should they be allowed to rest during the winter months?
Last weeks question was, Do you provide heat in your coop during the winter? Overwhelmingly those comment said that they do not provide heat in their chicken coops.
Have a great day! Every comment is up-voted and thanks for your up-vote, Tim and Joann
Mother nature works for a reason... I don't believe we should be tampering with this.
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We set up a light in the winter months on a timer and as the days get longer we shorten the time the light stay on. In mid April I will turn it off completely until late fall. No heat in our coop but we can seal off the vented area allowing more heat to stay in the coop.
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We let our girls do what they want. Although we do have a light on in the coop all the time. It is a pretty dim LED light, maybe 15 watt equivalent.
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Normally I would say no, don't mess with them, but unless you breed and raise yourself, you don't know how they have been bred these days.
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I can't afford to feed 18 hens for 6 months with organic feed and get few or no eggs. At $80/mo. this is pretty pricey. I sell eggs and pretty much the hens pay for themselves.
So I do use lights, starting in August when the light gets below the 14 hr threshold. The lights go on around 3AM and off around 6PM. (It's dark enough in the coop that they are affected w/o the light being on.)
My hens aren't pets and will go to Freezer Camp at 18 months or perhaps as late as 19.5 months if they lay really well. That's when the new flock should be starting to lay well. If I've culled well, then none of them will have started molting at this point. If a hen hatched in mid spring starts to molt in the following summer, it's an idicator that she is probably not a good layer. Good layers will not molt until the fall.
We don't heat the coop per se, but do use heat lamps set on a Thermo-Cube to keep the water open. This is really important in the winter if they are laying. They need access to water when the light is on so they can digest the feed they eat. They don't get let out of the coop until 7:30 - 8AM when it's full light. If they can not eat as well as they need, they will not lay as well as they can.
If you plan to use a light, then you need to plan to make sure they have all the nutrition they need to lay well. They do not have the resources to lay and keep warm in the winter without good nutrition. Most of the breeds available today were bred to lay well on the commercial feed and if that is supplemented in winter, they should thrive vs survive.
I've often wondered what chickens closer to the equator do in "winter"? They get light year round naturally...granted maybe only 12 - 13 hrs....
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I think it goes back to the age old question: if a rooster lays an egg on the peak of a roof which side will it roll down?
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Ha ha. When a rooster lays an egg, we'll look into it. :D
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I know nothing about hens but I think you should just let your chicks get pregnant according to their will haha.
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I don't know about what should be done, but we are letting ours rest. They're young so most of them are still laying anyway :)
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I wish I had a chicken.... Lol.
Nice post.. I love what you do..
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I don't know if it's the correct way, but we just let them go with the natural cycle.
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Ooo! I know from reading peoples' conversations about this online that this can be a hot topic.
I personally feel like the hens should be allowed to rest during the winter time. I dont give mine night time light, except a very dim night light for the purpose of allowing them to see just enough to get away from predators. (Heard horror stories from my uncle about chickens allowing them to be gnawed to death by rats because they could not see...)
I DO have australorps in my flock though, and I love them because they lay a LOT of eggs, AND on top of that, continue laying throughout the winter. So when my other birds stop laying, they keep on, and we do not run out of eggs.
Second topic: heat. They don't need heat in the winter, just a place to get out of the wind and lots of bedding to stay warm in. I am admittedly in Georgia now, where it does not get cold, so the only winter prep I do here for them is to staple cardboard over their windows to remove drafts during the coldest month of the year.
I came from OHio though, where the winters are much colder. Up there, you still dont need heat! We kept our chickens just fine in a coop with drafts blocked off andlots of fluffy bedding. They were just fine.
Besides that, I have heard many, many stories of barns being burned down from using heat lamps in the winter time, so it is risky for that reason.
I just realized the heat question was from last week. Got all excited and didnt read all the words,oops! Oh well...
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We haven’t used artificial lights or heat for a few years. We try to allow the chickens regulate the laying. We have a street light that gives them some light all night.
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