Light before Dawn

People that drive by our house between the hours of 6:00 - 8:30 AM and aren't familiar with chickens probably think we forgot to turn off our chicken house light when we did chores. But actually there is a purpose behind this light, to the point that there is a timer connected to it, that will turn it on every morning all winter; waking up our birds even when the sun doesn't.

Why? Chickens' internal clocks are very light and day length sensitive. Short, dark, cold days = no eggs. Which if you're a chicken makes sense. Why lay eggs, which equals babies, if the weather is not hospitable or even safe for such fragile little ones? Well, if you're a hen left to your own devices, you won't waste the energy. Instead, you'll molt your feathers, and use the energy you would have used to lay eggs to grow new feathers and keep warm. And then wait until next spring to start laying again. 

Which is all and good if you're a chicken, but not so great if you're a chicken farmer. Each year the thoughts argue in our minds, starting in late October, to light or not to light. As days grow shorter, darker, and colder, we suddenly usually within a weeks time go from 5 eggs a day to 1 or 0 eggs a day. And will continue like that all winter if we don't supplement some light in the coop.


We don't want to force our chickens completely out of sync with their natural cycles, but we don't like to leave family and friends high and dry as far as farm fresh eggs for 4 months of the year. So we compromise, and let the chickens have 6 - 8 weeks of dark, short days as October moves into November and November into December, to quit their egg laying for a while and molt. Some drop their feathers all at once, and look like this gal:

And others have been losing their feathers gradually, and suddenly one day you look at them and go, wow you look nice and sleek and fluffy, and realize they've been molting all along (like the other black one, sister of the partially naked one above).

Then the first week of December ( this week!) we start giving them their warm bright wake up call. Which they seem to especially like on those super cold days, when they huddle under the incandescent bulb to warm up a bit before heading out to forage for a few minutes.