Finally!

[thistlebloom]

I don't have electricity to the chicken coop, but in hot summer I run an extension cord out there with a fan. Guess I should have done this for a light in winter, but I will wait till next winter now. I suppose I could bury a cord. I wonder if just a heavy duty extension cord would work, or if I need the industrial wiring romax or what ever it is called.

I run a cords out to the chicken pen for light, the horse/goat pen for water, the feed shed for the barn cats heated pad, and the bird bath de-icer. They are all standard, grounded outdoor cords, not the extra heavy construction duty ones. They are all buried under a couple feet of snow. I wrap the connections up really well with multiple layers of electrical tape.

I think it's time for the girls to go to freezer camp this spring, as even with the light I only get a few eggs from 9 hens.
I'm going to have to woman up and do the butchering. I've never done it before, and I admit to being a little "chicken" about it.

 

[digitS']

So Lucky, my coop is just a few feet from the garage. I just use a mechanic's light and that gives me an outlet in the coop. I sometimes use that for running tools.

Everybody is SAD about less daylight during the winter months.

Chickens are too but it is less apparent in the youthful ones . Older hens just shut down. But, there's more to it than that and there is more-or-less daylight depending on where we live: NOAA's sunrise/sunset calculator

Here are some US cities and their sunrise/sunset times as of February 1st:

Seattle, WA
7:35am
5:11pm

Pittsburgh, PA
7:29am
5:29pm

Oklahoma City, OK
7:30am
5:58pm

New Orleans, LA
6:50am
5:38pm

On BYC, I used to get these lectures about being kind to the hens and giving them "time off" during the winter. I live just a tad north of Seattle (several hundred miles east but that doesn't count for length of day .) You can see that Pittsburgh has 24 minutes more daylight than I do; Oklahoma City has 53 minutes more; and New Orleans has 72 minutes more.

Of course, we are already about 5 weeks away from the shortest days of the year. It was even worse then, tho' I don't have as many cloudy winter days as Seattle (dang near) and NOAA isn't taking mountain shadows into account for any city! Finally, the angle of the sun is very low here which not only means it isn't above the horizon but when the sun is "up" - it is often in low clouds and haze.

Anyway, it comes down to about 16 hours of darkness during late December/early January. Is that quality "time off" for the hens? Even in a well insulated but unheated coop, it will be dang cold during the loooong nights of temperatures near zero! Sixteen hours of Darkness and Cold!

I used to run a light 24 hours a day during the coldest weeks of the year so the chickens could see to get down and eat during the night. In recent years, I have simply turned the season into about the same as it is during summer: 16 hours of daylight. The light is on a timer and it has the same setting 365 days a year. They get their 8 hours of darkness . . . and it is cold at this time of year, but, can get around to eat and drink if they want to, throughout the rest of the "day."

Now, do the hens pay much attention to this artificial day? I have to admit that during most any hour of daylight, they are out on their "porch" looking out on the world. It doesn't take them long to climb up on their indoor perches after sunset. There they sit, under my light . . . but they do get down once in a while. They don't complain about it being dark outside and if they did, my brother lives further north!

Steve

 

[April Manier]

Our sprung into high production about 2 weeks ago. I'm busy giving eggs away already!

 

[Smart Red]

I don't have electricity to the chicken coop, but in hot summer I run an extension cord out there with a fan. Guess I should have done this for a light in winter, but I will wait till next winter now. I suppose I could bury a cord. I wonder if just a heavy duty extension cord would work, or if I need the industrial wiring romax or what ever it is called.

I currently have a #8 wire extension cord buried in PVC pipe from the house to the garden shed (abt. 80 feet). I do have plans to wire that permanently soon. Then I have a heavy extension running from the shed to the coop (10 ft). I ran a fan last summer as well as lights. This works just fine until I get both the shed and the coop hard wired.


Love, Smart Red

 

[lesa]

Thistle, you can do it... It is a necessary job if you don't have unlimited space for chickens that aren't producing. On my "someday farm" all the chickens will die of old age... but with space at a premium- they have to go. We prefer to skin and use them for soup. The old girls are tough. I have never seen the purpose of plucking, when we don't eat the skin anyway. If you have a sharp pair of trimmers, it goes pretty easy...

 

[catjac1975]

Our chickens all die of old age. We had one home hatched mixed breed that layed colored eggs that lived to be at least 8 years old. She left an egg or two a week even as an old girl.

 

[thistlebloom]

Thistle, you can do it... It is a necessary job if you don't have unlimited space for chickens that aren't producing. On my "someday farm" all the chickens will die of old age... but with space at a premium- they have to go. We prefer to skin and use them for soup. The old girls are tough. I have never seen the purpose of plucking, when we don't eat the skin anyway. If you have a sharp pair of trimmers, it goes pretty easy...

I'd like to let them live out their retirement, but as you say Lesa, my coop has limited space and it just doesn't make sense for me.
I may be contacting you for a little mentoring help when I get to that point!

 

[ducks4you]

Yet ANOTHER year for me with my birds in a horse stall--COOP next SUMMER, for sure!! I keep a light on a timer for my layers. They get ~13 hours of light/day from it, and it's only a 60 watt bulb in one of those things you use for a heater lamp. I get ~9-13 eggs/day from my 5-9 month old layers.
I also keep a heated dog water bowl for them. Part of the it is the lack of light, and the other part is exposure to the ups and downs of winter weather.

 

[lesa]

No problem, thistle... It is not as bad as you are imagining it. A kill cone is a must. I wouldn't do the deed without it.

 

[baymule]

Yet ANOTHER year for me with my birds in a horse stall--COOP next SUMMER, for sure!! I keep a light on a timer for my layers. They get ~13 hours of light/day from it, and it's only a 60 watt bulb in one of those things you use for a heater lamp. I get ~9-13 eggs/day from my 5-9 month old layers.
I also keep a heated dog water bowl for them. Part of the it is the lack of light, and the other part is exposure to the ups and downs of winter weather.

Build a hoop coop! It is made from cow panels. Build a frame, staple the cow panels to it and frame in a door in one end. I covered mine with hardware cloth. My hoop coop is an addition to the coop, so mine is more of a run for my chickens. Hoop coops are easy to build and they go up fast.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/our-hoop-coops

http://www.pathfindersfarm.com/hoophouse.html

http://www.plamondon.com/hoop-coop.html