We managed to increase our egg production this winter by chainging out dark rook of hte coop with a bright fiberglass roof, and then installing 4 100 watt lights, 2 in each coop, on timers. that worked quite well! Unfortunately, shortly thereafter I removed 2 of the lights to place them in the "turkey coop". We wanted to get the turkeys to start laying by lengthening their day.
Two bad things happened, first, it didnt help the turkeys at all, but we also discovered that the heritage turkeys dont need lights! een the turkeys that were not in the coop started laying befor ethe lights could have kicked in. Second... the chicken egg production dropped.
It took me a while to make the connection between light intensity and egg production. I had always read that as long as "you can read a newspaper" the light was bright enough. That is apparently not true for our birds.
So we pulled the two lights out of the new abandoned turkey coop and placed them back in the chicken coop. Within a week or two we should have prodution back up and hopefully eggs for sale again!
Follow along our adventure as we make the transition from corporate city life to the world of natural farming. Each day brings a new experience and brings us to a deeper understanding about the life and spirit that made America great. At our farm we do our best to give the animals we raise a natural, free, happy, stressfree lifestyle. Our mission is to learn and share how to manage a farming operation that is both profitable and humane.
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