Chickens laying through winter with lights

Our chickens, like all chickens, don't lay very well over winter.  The pineal gland in their brain detects the reduced hours of sunlight, and they either lay less or stop laying eggs entirely.  For young pullets, this is normally not an issue and they still produce enough eggs.  For older hens, this can mean months of no eggs.  

Our hens are getting old, they are six or seven years old now.  I should have retired them the previous winter, but didn't, and for a number of reasons (one being sentimental) I didn't retire them this winter either.  

We only eat the eggs our hens lay.  Even when you include the cost of buying point of lay hens, their eggs are still considerably cheaper than supermarket eggs.  Our older hens largely stopped laying when winter started.  We were getting one egg every few days, which is dreadful when you are feeding eleven hens.

When we had acreage I bought some garden solar spotlights.  I put them in front of the chicken tractors over winter, and they increased the number of light hours enough that we got a lot of eggs over winter.  I haven't done this for a few years and thought I would do this again.  My hens are now in a shed instead of a chicken tractor, which has changed things. 

The solar lights work well if they can get sun, and can shine directly into the coop.  This was perfect with a chicken tractor.  With our current set up this wasn't working well as I can't get the right angle.  I had one light in the ground, another light on the fence, and between them could not get the right angle.  

Solar spotlight for eggs

Solar garden spotlight for chickens

I couldn't get the angle right

I like the solar lights because they are cheap to buy and free to run.  No point spending a lot of money when the whole idea is to save money!  

The solar lights do not pose a fire risk, or need an electrician.  They are bright enough for a few hours that they increase the number of eggs laid, and they dim out each evening so the hens are not surprised by it immediately turning dark. 

These solar garden lights are about ten years old, perhaps more, their light is dim and they were not working overly well.  So we decided to invest in a new solar light. 

The new one we got has two lights.  It has a small solar panel, and a short lead that is connected to the lights.  This means I can put the lights in the chicken house and angle them where I want light, and have the solar panel outside where it can catch sunlight.  

Solar panel is sitting on the roof, and the light are inside the shed under shelter.

Solar panel on the roof

Lights inside and pointing where needed

Having two lights means I can change their angles and have them face wherever I want.  This worked well.  We went from one egg every few days, to a few weeks later getting 3 or 4 eggs per day.  This continued all winter. Perfect!  

As you can see below, we have a lot of hens.  They are old, and it was winter, so it is expected that they would lay no eggs until late spring.  Getting a few eggs per day is all we need.

As you can see in the photo, these solar lights do not produce huge amounts of light.  This amount of light is enough to induce them to lay.

View from outside the chicken house at night

Solar light on chickens over winter

People have some concerns with inducing chickens to lay over winter using supplemental lighting.  Some concerns are valid, others less so.  I thought I should mention some of these concerns here.  

I haven't used lighting in a few years.  When I do use lights, I only ever use them over the winter months.  I remove the lights when the day length starts getting a bit longer.  I am not sure, but think if I had the lights all year it would probably stress the birds and lead to them having a shorter life.  If you add lights to your chicken run, only do so for the shortest months.  There is no need to have them under lights all year.

Chickens have all the eggs they will ever lay inside them when they hatch.  I used to worry that adding lighting would mean they may lay out all their eggs too soon and then be barren in their later years. I am glad to say that this is not the case.  A vet told me they chickens have thousands of eggs inside them, they lay a small fraction of these over their life and the vast majority are never laid.  According to the vet, adding winter lighting can not make chickens lay out all their eggs too early in life.  This is reassuring to know.  

Some people worry that the chickens will not moult if given extra light.  This is not the case with these solar garden lights.  The lights are not bright enough to prevent moulting.  The chickens still get enough environmental queues to moult when they need to, and they tend to stagger moulting with some hens moulting and others still laying.  I currently have 11 old hens, and was getting 3 or 4 eggs per day in the depths of winter.  I use rather dim lights because they were cheap.  Given that people in places such as Ecuador raise chickens, and they moult with a little over 12 hours of sunlight year round, I doubt that having brighter lighting could prevent moulting.  

I have read on online poultry forums people expressing a concern that the chickens will not sleep and will die if they are provided with supplemental lighting.  This is an unrealistic concern.  Light does not prevent them from ever sleeping.  My solar garden lights are only on a few hours before they dim out.  People raise chickens in northern countries where the sun does not set for weeks on end, and they don't seem to have issues with hens falling dead from lack of sleep.  You can see in my photo that my hens are roosting with the light on them.  They were asleep when I opened the door and woke just before I took the photo.  Even when they are asleep, their pineal gland is detecting elevated levels of light, which brings them into lay.  

They still roost, and get enough light to induce laying

People have a concern that the chickens will be active when the lights are on, and not be able to find their way to roost once the lights suddenly switch off.  This is not an issue with these solar lights.  As you can see, my hens roost even with the light on.  Even if they were active, this would still not pose a problem.  These lights do not go from dazzling bright light to off in the blink of an eye.  These are not overly bright to begin with, and they slowly dim out after a few hours.  If the hens were active, they have plenty of time to get to the roost while the light slowly fades away.

A large risk that must be considered is safety.  If you run an electrical cord and run a lamp in the chicken house there may be a fire risk.  These solar lights do not pose a fire risk.  If they get shorted out by rain or something they just stop working.  It is not the same as running a power cable from the house.  My lights are up off the ground where they are touching nothing other than wire, which also reduces the possibilities of fire hazard.  They produce next to no heat, so even if the lights were nestled in among straw they should not heat up enough to cause a fire.  Fire is a serious danger and is worth considering when you place your lights.  

Now that it is spring I will remove the lights and pack them away until next winter.  The solar lights helped my old hens lay eggs over winter, and now the days are long enough that the lights are not needed.  I plan to put the lights up again next winter, and ensure that my family has eggs year round.