Day length/lights

[rick]

I think I made a bit of a discovery ( for myself anyway.)
Over the winter I have been extending the light in the garden long enough to get home and give them some warm mash etc to see them through the night. Whether that is absolutely necessary or just makes me happy that theve had their 'supper' is another thing! Anyway - not surprisingly, even though its less than 12 hours, egg production has been full tilt.
Over the past couple of weeks I have been plastering in the house and nicked their light to see the job! With natural sunset the egg production has dwindled and that's good as they are getting a bit of a break, but...
The surprising thing has been that disturbing their roost a couple of hours after sunset for a nighttime supper for half an hour hasn't changed the lower rate of laying.
Is it bad to wake them up? They don't seem to mind.

 

[chrismahon]

If ours get disturbed during the night they drop eggs in their panic Rick. The youngsters are probably OK but the oldies definitely not. We had very high winds a few nights ago which must have rocked two coops and they had dropped eggs in both. Always bothered about extra light at night- how do they find the perches when the light goes off?

 

[Marigold]

I would just leave them to roost in peace, and cut out the warm mash now the days are getting longer and warmer. It hardly seems fair to wake them up, roust them out and feed them, when they've hd plenty of time to stoke up before their natural roosting time. The days are getting longer quite quickly now, so I expect that soon they will be awake when you get home anyway.
I do feed mine with warm mash in winter but I stop by the end of February.

 

[rick]

I put a wind up torch in the roosting box before turning the light out. Slowly dims out over about 15 mins.
I hadn't thought about dropping eggs. They don't seem to be startled by the interruption and wander down when I bring the bowl but I can see it's a risk. Thanks both, no more night time snack time!
The torch was good though - wherever you put it they go to roost.