Love how much headspace you have. Keeps the air fresh. Beautiful windows.
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Production had been slowly falling, but a week ago it plummeted. Bringing in half the number eggs to farmers market that we were bringing a month ago.Had to skip a week of egg deliveries.
Lights are now on, and pullets ought to be ready to lay, so here’s hoping October will be a better month for eggs.
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i never give supplemental lighting for 2 reasons. 1st. i want my girls to rest and replenish like nature intended over winter. our winters are harsh so i want them to use their resources to survive. 2, supplemental lighting heats the coop causing the birds to not harden off naturally to the cold. then a power outage hits on a very cold night, or a bulb burns out. half the flock succumbs to the cold. I’ve seen it many times here, yet people still insist their birds need heat. my birds i have now went through -40 and more with 0 loses. 2/3rds of my flock are white leghorns, which are supposedly not hardy to -0 temps. my coop has open eaves and no insulation. I’ve never lost a bird to cold. worst they got was a little frostbite on the tips of their combs. the few loses I’ve had were in the warmer months. keep your coop dry with good air circulation and they will be fine. i do supplement them with cracked corn to up their carb intake. fuel for their inner fire for our long, cold nights.
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I was initially concerned about lights, and I was appalled when I heard that some commercial egg factories leave lights 24 hours a day, but we went ahead and used lights to satisfy customer demand. If the eggs were only for ourselves, we’d probably not do it. They get 14 hours a day max, and continue to do it 20 years later because they’ve never seemed stressed out by it. I haven’t noticed our birds being more vulnerable to the elements, but we are probably a couple hardiness zones warmer than where you are.
Two LED lightbulbs do not heat up the hen house. I agree with you about no heat. Roosters with single combs are the most vulnerable to frostbite, but the points they lose don’t grow back, so they have no problem with frostbite the next winter.
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We currently have no leghorns. But we’ve never gotten many white eggs in the winter even with lights.
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they are my heaviest layers by far. if you want eggs and alot of them they are the ones to keep. they are very frugal eaters for what they put out in eggs. they are also a small bird that doesnt take up much space. i have 15 of them that are 4 years old this year and they are still pumping out a egg a day from April to Nov. probably due to me not putting lights in there. my customers understand that i let my girls rest for the winter but start bugging me come late April.
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