# Lighting question



## powderhogg01 (Jun 4, 2013)

I am going to light my coop. I would like I increase y egg production through winter. I do realize that this will cause my birds to wear out sooner, however I have the intentions of culling my hens at 2 years or when there are too many. 
How much light do I need, do I need to bring the brightness up slowly or will a quick start work? 
Thanks for the advice here guys.. I know I need the light on in the am.. Just not sure exactly when and how bright of light is required.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

They need 14 hours of light to stimulate laying. From what I've researched, the light should be increased by 15-20 minutes a week until you reach 14 hours. I also heard it will take a few weeks with this light before it stimulates them to lay again. Here, the sun doesn't come up until 7:30 and is gone by 4. So I would need to start lighting them up at 2:30 am (after the gradual increase). Although, that seems a little weird to me.


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## powderhogg01 (Jun 4, 2013)

I would imagine that the time the lights on could be spread out to a few hours before and after the sun?


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

I thought so too but apparently the chickens get really confused with brightness at the end of the day. All the recommendations I've heard say to only light in the morning. I don't plan on lighting but if I did, I would feel weird waking them up at 2:00 am!


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## Apyl (Jun 20, 2012)

Lighting the coop does not cause the hen to wear out sooner. Each hen is born with thousands of "eggs" already in them (like women) even if they laid an egg a day 7 days a week they would not use up the store of eggs inside them before they reach the end of their laying career. 

To light set up a timer to go on at 20 min before sunrise, every 5 days or so add another 20 minutes until you've reached 14 hours of daylight. Just so you know, it can take the birds up to 8 weeks to get back into laying if they have already gotten out of the routine.


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## redneckcgil29 (May 13, 2013)

What I did was I went to the store and bought some solar spotlights and have them hanging in the run so they have plenty of sunshine and it shines into the coop through a window.they stay on for about 3 hours so its perfect... It took about two weeks to notice the egg production.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

According to a study I read several years ago, hens will burn out when not allowed the down time from egg laying. That the time they are not producing allows them to build back up after the extra work of egg laying. The study also stated that hens forced to lay year round had a much higher incidence of reproductive cancers.


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## LittleWings (Jul 15, 2013)

robin416 said:


> According to a study I read several years ago, hens will burn out when not allowed the down time from egg laying. That the time they are not producing allows them to build back up after the extra work of egg laying. The study also stated that hens forced to lay year round had a much higher incidence of reproductive cancers.


I agree. It's not nice to fool with mother nature. But PH rotates his birds out every two years so it shouldn't matter if he is going to eat them anyway. 
I would just put them on a timer that replicates summertime hours.


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