Hi Glenn,
For what it worth, when I lived in Alaska, I had chickens. In the winter (sunrise 10 am, sunset 3 pm), I couldn't get them to lay eggs until I tried several things. Until I had all these factors, they wouldn't lay eggs:
1. liquid water (not frozen)
2. sufficient protein in the feed (i used a feed made with salmon scr…
For what it worth, when I lived in Alaska, I had chickens. In the winter (sunrise 10 am, sunset 3 pm), I couldn't get them to lay eggs until I tried several things. Until I had all these factors, they wouldn't lay eggs:
1. liquid water (not frozen)
2. sufficient protein in the feed (i used a feed made with salmon scraps from the fish processors)
3. 10-12 hours of light
4. adequate brightness of light
5. The right COLOR of light
Once I got the first 4 factors, 15 hens started giving 2 or 3 eggs some days, other days no eggs. When I switched the bulks from "daylight" bulbs (about 6000 to 7000 Kelvin color temperature) to reddish orange light (about 4000 to 5000 kelvin color temp), it was like a switch flipped and they started really cranking out the eggs, about 80 to 90% of what they would do on a summer day.
Given the above, and the fact that so many in Northern latitudes suffer low vitamin D and seasonal affective disorder (SAD), often treated with special lamps and light therapy, I believe you are on to something. Research the pineal gland, if you haven't already. The decrease in blue rays at the sun's setting directly impacts production of melatonin, which aids sleep (unless you get exposure to artificial blue rays). So no doubt there are other health benefits from sun exposure, not just on skin, but in the eyes (maybe not looking straight at the sun, but certainly indirect light is normal).
Hi Glenn,
For what it worth, when I lived in Alaska, I had chickens. In the winter (sunrise 10 am, sunset 3 pm), I couldn't get them to lay eggs until I tried several things. Until I had all these factors, they wouldn't lay eggs:
1. liquid water (not frozen)
2. sufficient protein in the feed (i used a feed made with salmon scraps from the fish processors)
3. 10-12 hours of light
4. adequate brightness of light
5. The right COLOR of light
Once I got the first 4 factors, 15 hens started giving 2 or 3 eggs some days, other days no eggs. When I switched the bulks from "daylight" bulbs (about 6000 to 7000 Kelvin color temperature) to reddish orange light (about 4000 to 5000 kelvin color temp), it was like a switch flipped and they started really cranking out the eggs, about 80 to 90% of what they would do on a summer day.
Given the above, and the fact that so many in Northern latitudes suffer low vitamin D and seasonal affective disorder (SAD), often treated with special lamps and light therapy, I believe you are on to something. Research the pineal gland, if you haven't already. The decrease in blue rays at the sun's setting directly impacts production of melatonin, which aids sleep (unless you get exposure to artificial blue rays). So no doubt there are other health benefits from sun exposure, not just on skin, but in the eyes (maybe not looking straight at the sun, but certainly indirect light is normal).
Thank you Brian. Super interesting.