you might recall that a few months ago we were wondering whether or not we should light the chicken coop to maintain egg production from The Girls over the winter. eventually, we decided to light the coop for a hours if only to try to train them to lay in the morning before we leave for work so we can collect eggs before they freeze in the cold of winter. the theory being that hens will supposedly lay within a few hours of “day break”. if we have the light timer turn on a couple of hours before we leave for work, we hope that most of the The Girls will have laid Their Gifts by the time we leave. any effects on production would be a bonus.

so far, the production results have been great. we’ve heard from several families with backyard hen flocks twice the size of ours who are averaging and egg a day! we’re averaging seven eggs a day from eight hens which is just about the maximum you can expect.

but i can’t say we’ve trained them to lay before we leave for work. or at least not all of them. we’re tracking egg laying times and on a good day we get about half our eggs by 8 am and the other half by noon. it seems like they might be laying earlier and earlier as they get older but it’s hard to tell for sure.

with winter setting in, hopefully they’ll all get to laying by 8 am so we don’t end up with a buch of frozen eggs ( you can eat them after they’re frozen but they’re not as tasty )!