Lighting, Molting & Egg Production: How Day Length Affects Your Chickens & Quail
What role does light play in your flock’s health, behavior, and egg production? In this episode of the Poultry Nerds Podcast, we dig deep into how seasonal changes in daylight—like the summer solstice—affect your chickens and quail. From lighting tricks to manage molting, to using LED and rope lights for consistent laying, we share expert tips for lighting routines in brooders, barns, and breeder pens.
Join Carey and Jennifer as they discuss the science behind light spectrums (blue vs red), setting the mood for fertility, and preventing light-related stress in poultry. Whether you're raising birds naturally or using artificial light to plan for early chick hatches, this episode gives practical insights backed by real-world experience.
Get answers to questions like:
When should you add artificial light?
How long should poultry get light per day?
Can lighting affect molting or aggression?
Does red or blue light make a difference in poultry care?
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Carey: 0:24
Hello poultry nerds. How are y'all doing today? We are here for an exciting conversation about light. We did a podcast a little bit back about the molt and talked about what all goes on during that time of a bird's life. So now we're gonna talk about lighting and how the sun's coming up and going down the length of the day. We're gonna talk about how all that affects reproduction, egg laying, what your birds are doing, all that good stuff on this episode. How you doing, Jennifer?
Jennifer: 1:04
I'm good. Like I just had a flashback to my childhood. Do you remember that commercial that said the more you know. It was like a star or something. I can't remember what that was for, but
Carey: 1:18
no, and it really makes me wanna like just stop and look it up because that's how my brain works. But I'm not going to, but it is true. The more you know, the more informed decisions you can make and it may help. I was having a conversation with somebody earlier today. And blurted out something.'cause sometimes I do that and my, I don't think I just speak and it's also ex takes, it makes sense of what we're talking about. Headaches are expensive and peace of mind is worth it. So we'll talk about some of the headaches that you encounter this time of year and all that good stuff.
Jennifer: 2:04
I know that we typically try to stay away from dating our recordings so that if you're listening to it, like in the future it won't matter what today's weather is, but in this. Episode, I think it's relevant that we say this is June 30th, right after the summer. Sol solstice. Is that how you say it? Sos, yeah.
Carey: 2:29
Get that word out.
Jennifer: 2:32
So that's the longest day of the year. And the shortest day is somewhere around Christmas. Is it like the 27th or something like that? Yeah,
Carey: 2:42
it's right before New Year's. I'm not a hundred percent sure exactly what day.
Jennifer: 2:46
Yeah. And the reason why that is important because in the life of a chicken, their instinct is to procreate. And so the days getting longer, they start laying eggs depending on where you are. But sometime in the spring, March, April. Then the days are getting longer. They get their babies out, they get'em grown up, and then it's time to kinda replenish their bodies, prepare for winter, fall, molt. So they don't lay as well. My chickens are not laying well at all. And we're talking about older birds. We're not talking about six month old birds here.
Carey: 3:34
Yeah, because they're not, a six month old bird's not even thinking about molten.
Jennifer: 3:38
No, we're talking about like 18 month old birds, year old birds, something like that. But anyway, so now we've had the summer solstice. Last week, last Saturday I think it was, and now the days are starting to get shorter, so the birds are gonna stop laying as well and start forging more. You're gonna see more birds going into the malt. And replenishing their bodies and getting prepared for winter, which I know is hard to imagine when it's 188 degrees outside and 99% humidity.
Carey: 4:21
Yeah.
Jennifer: 4:22
But that's what their bodies are telling them to do.
Carey: 4:24
But like for us, I can go put a jacket on and put some insulated pants on and I'm prepared. It takes them a hot minute to grow those feathers.
Jennifer: 4:38
It does. Was it 90 days or so from start to finish?
Carey: 4:41
It depends a lot on the genetics of the bird. The breed pretty heavily on the nutrition, but yeah. Takes a while.
Jennifer: 4:54
Yep. And you want it done before winter is here. Yeah. Otherwise you're gonna be out there putting insulated boots and coats on your little chickens.
Carey: 5:05
So those would be the ones that have a burn barrel or one of those Woodburn stoves out in their chicken run.
Jennifer: 5:13
Yep.
Carey: 5:13
cause their birds are naked.
Jennifer: 5:15
So we're gonna talk about some options that you have in relation to this light. So let's start with chickens. And my preference this time of year is to allow them a more natural, slow down, and go into the molt gracefully. And recover at their le leisure. I don't try to force a mole and don't try to rush it or anything. I just try to provide supportive care. I guess I'll pull the males out so they're not aggravating the hens. You don't wanna handle the birds'cause they're getting. Aggravated every little thing. And they're just, their bodies are getting ready to do this thing. And as the days get shorter it'll happen quicker. And then I, at the end, in the fall and early winter, and I know it's hard to think about it like this, but. If the shortest day is in December and I want chicks in January, February, then I need to start lengthening their days in November, December. So I'm just changing the natural way of things just ever so slightly by a month or so is all I'm doing. So this time of year I'm letting them do their natural thing, but then in. Dec, say December 1st, around in thereabouts, I'll start adding light in to start lengthening their days. So I can get those eggs out sooner so I can get chicks faster on the ground. What do you think? Yeah.
Carey: 7:04
cause those orders, they get backed up very fast.
Jennifer: 7:08
Yeah. Now the whale, once
Carey: 7:11
hatching season's here, like. First week or two, you're like, oh this ain't gonna be bad this year. I'm good. It hasn't stopped
Jennifer: 7:22
yet.
Carey: 7:23
Another week or two hits, and you're putting your phone on silent because the daggum notifications keep coming in. And then you're like, I gotta turn off ordering on my page. I gotta put it outta stock or something because I. I may not have eggs. I'm so far backed up.
Jennifer: 7:46
Yes.
Carey: 7:47
So that's a real thing.
Jennifer: 7:49
Yep. So on the quail, now they're inside my barn. I do run them in cages inside my barn. They have a consistent environment. Consistent light, it comes on at five 30. I don't change it with the time change, so you'll have to bear with me there a little bit. It may
Carey: 8:11
be off by an hour or half a year. Yeah,
Jennifer: 8:14
somewhere around 5 30, 6 o'clock in the morning and it goes off between eight and nine o'clock at night. Just depends on what time of the year it is. But it's every day. And then I can open the doors, let the natural light in, let the air flow through. I have exhaust fans all, they've kinda got their own little housing project going on out there. I. So they're comfortable
Carey: 8:39
Now. That's like a neighborhood. You've got more, you got more than a couple houses out there. You got a small neighborhood in your barn.
Jennifer: 8:49
I told David I needed more highrises out there coming into the fall. He just looked at me.
Carey: 8:55
Somebody asked me the other day, how many, just, how many quail do you have? I was like I don't know.
Jennifer: 9:04
We don't ask, and they're like,
Carey: 9:05
what do you mean? I said I have this many stacks. I'm not really sure if all of them are full or not. I go through a little over a ton, almost two tons of feed a month. But I don't know how many. Yeah.
Jennifer: 9:21
So do you have lights in your barn?
Carey: 9:24
So I have lights in my Quail barn. I also have lights outside in my breeding pens. Okay. Mainly because, birds have less stress, like people when they have consistency. So my birds, once they get to that time, they wake up every day to get 14 hours a daylight. And still go to bed at a natural, in a natural way. That's what time they wake up until I start seeing feathers drop. Now, when I start seeing feathers drop this time of year two days ago, in fact I cut my lights off on all my breeding pins. Now I still have the fans on. And they'll run on the same timer.'cause I obviously want the fans on during the day and whatever, but so I stopped the lighting when the molt starts and I let the molt go. And I talked about this in that molting podcast episode, but I'll let it start until. That's almost, the molt is almost like contagious, like foul pos. One starts it and within a week or so you're seeing some feathers everywhere. And then I'll start feeding. So once it starts, I'll cut the lights off, and then after about a week when everybody's doing it. At this point, just a little, then I'll feed a molt ration to them. That is a lot lower in protein, but it's really high in fiber and it also is low in methionine. But I don't want to give their feathers a whole lot of amino acids right now. I want them to fall out. So I'll do that. Then I'll go back to feeding them what I was before, which is really high in those vitamins. So the last part of the of it that pushes the feathers out. But before I turn my lights back on, I wait until my birds are fully feathered, like fully feathered looks normal. Everything's good. Then I will find out what time the sun comes up and I'll start my lights at that same time, and I will decrease by 30 minutes. Like I'll do 30 minutes a week until I get to the point to where I'm at a 14 hour day with lights on. Once the light goes off, they probably have another hour or so of daylight.
Jennifer: 12:35
When you say decrease, you mean back it up in the morning?
Carey: 12:37
Yeah. I, like right now I think my lights come on at three. At, before I unplugged them, they were coming on at 3:30 AM because I want them to have that consistent 12 hour day and then for the next four hours. I want it to end like normal. If your lights just go out and your birds aren't on the roost, they're like, what the crap's going on? Where am I at? And you'll hear all rustling and tussling and they'll hit their heads flying up and just that and the other and it them out. That screws with the egg production, it screws with the delaying frequency, just. Like they're really finicky. If they have any kind of exterior stress, they're not laying.
Jennifer: 13:58
So when you turn'em back on, are we talking somewhere around between Halloween and Thanksgiving?
Carey: 14:03
No. September-ish. But
Jennifer: 14:06
you're, you back'em up, you're nice to your birds and you back'em up nicely. 30 minutes at a time.
Carey: 14:11
Yeah. 30 week, 30 minutes a week is like nothing. They don't notice it. So that, that starts the consistency of a wake up and adding the supplemental light. As stress free as possible.
Jennifer: 14:30
See, I'm so mean to my chickens. So I use rope lighting. We're gonna talk about the different kinds of lighting we use, but in, I have, we call'em the condos and it's nine pens on my right, Leann tube of my barn. And I have LED rope lights in there on a. Cheapo Christmas timer, and I don't back'em up 30 minutes at a time. If you're going in those pens, that's because I need you to start laying eggs and it just comes on at three o'clock in the morning. It's just time change like flying from here to China or something.
Carey: 15:03
Oh, now the timers that I use they're like the. 9 99 for two of'em on Amazon,
Jennifer: 15:09
exactly the cheap Christmas summer,
Carey: 15:11
which, I have more money in my ventilation, in my watering systems being automated and all that crap. And it's actually sad because I can monitor temperatures all that other crap wifi through an app on my phone. But I can't adjust the lights when the power goes out and I don't think about my lights and like I wake up at two o'clock in the morning or one o'clock in the morning to go to the restroom. I'm like, why the crap are the lights on? I'm going back to bed and then I'll go check it later. And. Oh the timer's nine hours off
Jennifer: 15:56
because the electricity went off.
Carey: 15:59
I'm gonna jack with y'all today, but I'm gonna set this back to the right time.
Jennifer: 16:05
I have to laugh because I do the exact same thing. If I get up in the middle of the night and I look out at the barn through the window and the lights are on. They're on. That means it's after three o'clock, but still it's dark, so it's still time for me to go back to bed.
Carey: 16:20
Yeah. I don't think it is after three
Jennifer: 16:25
or if they're on inside the barn, I'm like, did I go to bed early or are those jacked up out there? And I'll have to go look at them and see,
Carey: 16:34
do I need to get me another one of those$5? Did that timer mess up?
Jennifer: 16:40
I have discovered that the spiders will go inside of'em and do what they do and jack'em up that way.
Carey: 16:49
Oh yeah. Bugs love electronics.
Jennifer: 16:51
Yes. So let's talk about the different kind of lights that we use and then we'll go to the babies. But in my breeder pens, the condos and the only reason I call'em condos is'cause it's on the pond side of the farm.
Carey: 17:09
Don't even lie. You call'em condos because they are compared to other people's runs. Y'all people have a 10 by 20 run and they think they're doing something good and they've got six, seven feet per bird and this, that, and the other. Her freaking condos mean
Jennifer: 17:30
no. These are the ones on the lean to. They're like five by eight or something.
Carey: 17:34
Okay. You can still fit a twin size bed in a bird where you got in a condo where you have two or three birds.
Jennifer: 17:44
I have ain't stressing
Carey: 17:45
with their lake, lake side or pond side view.
Jennifer: 17:48
Yeah, I have a lot of birds. Anyway, so I bought a hundred, so my barn's 50 feet long. I bought a hundred feet of LED, exterior rope lighting, the daylight version of LED. And we went down and then came back up. So they get two strands per condo and it plugs into a nappy old extension cord. I found somewhere with wires hanging out of it. It goes through the window inside the barn and plugged into a$5 Christmas timer.
Carey: 18:24
I can see it now. Hey David, do we have any electrical tape? May, oh, here's some duct tape. I'll use that.
Jennifer: 18:31
Yep. Inside the barn for the quail, I have bought LED shop lights. They're like strip lights, maybe an inch wide, inch and a half wide at the most, but they're eight feet long and you can get like a bundle of 10 of them for. I don't know, a hundred bucks or something. I was gonna
Carey: 18:55
say, I think when I ordered mine, they were around a hundred bucks.
Jennifer: 18:58
Yeah. And then, and they connect, you can chain'em together. And so I just have them propped up on top of different things. Cha they don't get hot or at least really hot. And so I just have them propped up on. The pens and stuff in there and they are in a$5 Christmas timer. And I think I've got. I think I've got three sets of those.'cause you're only supposed to chain'em, link'em, so many of them together. I'm gonna say, I think you're only
Carey: 19:33
supposed to do three or four.
Jennifer: 19:36
That's, but I
Carey: 19:36
can tell you six works.
Jennifer: 19:39
Yeah. So they're over there and as long as the, the quail can see what they're doing, see their food and everything. The quail are pretty happy. They're fine.
Carey: 19:49
Yeah. One of the biggest misconceptions about light is that they need a lot. And really and truly, no, they don't. They need about the equivalent of an overcast day.
Jennifer: 20:03
Yeah, that's, yeah. Now on occasion I do turn the big LED lights on, like the built in barn lights during the day. And on occasion there times one, your birds would
Carey: 20:17
be like, my eyes. My
Jennifer: 20:18
eyes. Yeah. There's been times like where a thunderstorm has rolled up or something, and. I'm like, I'm not going back out there to shut those lights off in this thunderstorm. They slept with the lights on and in the morning their little eyes were, woo.
Carey: 20:35
You're just trying to keep'em honest.
Jennifer: 20:38
Everyone saw curve. You gotta
Carey: 20:39
throw'em. Hey, they throw you a curve ball every once in a while. Yeah. So I feel like it's totally fair for me to throw mine a curve ball.
Jennifer: 20:46
Exactly.
Carey: 20:48
Yeah. That's the way to do it.
Jennifer: 20:51
So you have these, like what kinda lights do you have in your outside pens? They sell water. No. They're you got fancy lights?
Carey: 21:03
No, I have Phillips, LED no flicker LEDs. So I get, maybe you could say that's fancy. But so quail, they're already paranoid, stressed out. Freaking psychos because their metabolism runs a million miles an hour and they're doing whatever. But chickens are more laid back. They're the more relaxed of the poultry world. The turkeys are the more inquisitive, but, so I have those out there because the flicker rate, if you can look through the camera on your phone and you see a flicker. Your birds can see it with a naked eye and that's another thing that causes stress. So
Jennifer: 21:57
yeah, I'm looking at my LED light above me right now. I do not see a flicker through my phone.
Carey: 22:05
That's probably'cause you have quality LED lights. I doubt it. But so I use those and I have, just extension cords running around. And have those in one of those sockets that you plug in and plug it in, like you'll screw the light into it and then plug it in the wall. I have it in that totally not outdoor rated at all, but a lot of my breeding pens are either the retriever dog kennels from tractor supply, so they have that A-frame type roof. So I have it up under the air. Of course. Zip tied to the pipe.'cause I ain't mountain jack. And on my fly pins that I use for breeding, they're tucked up under the roof. It doesn't Okay. In three years I've had some of them for two, some of'em for three, but I have never once had a trip breaker. From horizontal rain hitting it, which is shocking, but no pun intended.
Jennifer: 23:20
Okay, so let's talk about light in the brooder rooms for the young babies. What do you do in there?
Carey: 23:28
I have some very blue like party lot blue LEDs. That is because the blue spectrum, like when you look at the sun spectrum the colors that are richer in the blues promote growth and all that kind of stuff, which is what you want chick to do. So I use that and I will say outside I do have a couple of plant grow lots and I have them for the red spectrum because that more promotes egg production and some of my pens are heavily shaded. So that's why I have that down there just to make sure.'cause. Standard poultry don't like to lay a whole lot anyway. So they need all the help they can get. So
Jennifer: 24:33
you said red helps with the eggland? I didn't know that.
Carey: 24:37
But let me tell you this also, when you're using those specific hues to. Technically manipulate what they're doing. Or promote it or whatever. It's very important that you stay at a low brightness because intensity and actually make them violent. There's, especially with quail, not as much with chickens. But I had somebody that was new to quail, but they were having problems with aggression, and they had 6,500 K lights and the place was lit up like Yankee Stadium and their birds were killing each other. And I was like, cut off about three fourths of your lights, see what happens. And within a couple of days, the problem went away.
Jennifer: 25:44
I have I'm sure you're sitting there wondering why I've got the giggles, but I just got like this picture in my head of setting the mood, with the lampshade and draping the red scarf over it.
Carey: 25:56
Heck yeah.
Jennifer: 25:58
So you set the mood for the egg laying right?
Carey: 26:01
That's right.
Jennifer: 26:02
So it's all about like romantic lighting. That would be about the right intensity, is that what you're saying?
Carey: 26:10
Yes. This is
Jennifer: 26:12
all serious, and I'm giggling
Carey: 26:14
to promote that. That's what they're doing. If you want it to be fertile anyway, it's how the mood all it is, you gotta set the mood.
Jennifer: 26:23
Okay, so let's go back inside for just a minute. So what is it about the blue light?'cause I don't run colored lights. My lights are on or off. What's the blue light?
Carey: 26:34
So with the blue light, I use some, I wanna say they're four watt, like they're not bright at all. They're probably about as bright as, they're a little bit bigger than a night lot. Okay. But not a lot. But like the rope lots for I had one person want me to come check their place out. They had, they were like, oh, I have these lights. Let's see if we can use them. And they were pretty right at perfect on the intensity. And it was a set of rope lots that they had gotten to put around their camper.'cause a lot of people that use campers and campgrounds will put like a border around their camper of lights. Mainly so you don't walk into it at nighttime. So that, and they'd have those in blue.
Jennifer: 27:35
And so chicks can see the blue color
Carey: 27:39
unless they're blind.
Jennifer: 27:41
I never asked one what color they could see.
Carey: 27:45
I don't speak chick, but you know it, the science behind it. So there's a company in the commercial realm of poultry called Highline, and they have spent probably several million on different researches. And when I was studying light. A lot of documentation that I found actually referenced some of their studies and like they, they've done really long tests where, birds they break it down to the actual frequency of light that stimulates the most efficient amount of growth because for them, they want to hatch that chick and get it to start laying eggs as fast as possible. So it's, I think at one point it even said, use lighting like this for this many days and then switch to this. And I was like, wow. Okay. That's intense.
Jennifer: 28:54
I know you did an article about it a while back, so let's send me a copy of that and we'll post it to the poultry nerds website so people can read it. Okay.
Carey: 29:03
Yeah it breaks down the Kelvin, the can candela brightness, like 2,700 K is what you really want to be at for brightness, and it breaks down all that crap.
Jennifer: 29:18
Wow. Yeah. My birds get on or off, so I see people posting pictures of their brooders and they use those red reptile lights. So does the red. Hurt the chicks? No. It,
Carey: 29:32
It doesn't hurt'em, it just doesn't speed up the process, which is one of the questions why I have wondered, I've never actually asked somebody that makes those heat lamps, but I've always wondered, if Blue produce or if the Blue Spectrum kicks off growth more. Wouldn't you wanna make the heat lamp put off a blue light instead of a red?
Jennifer: 30:01
I think those are made for reptiles, actually. And I don't know anything about reptiles, but I bet it has something to do with that.
Carey: 30:08
So I have a buddy of mine that was a reptile breeder. He quit after about 20 something years. They're a lot different. They're a whole different ball game.
Jennifer: 30:19
I bet it has something to do with that.
Carey: 30:21
Probably. Yep.
Jennifer: 30:24
Have we covered just about everything?
Carey: 30:28
As, as far as I can think of. Yeah.
Jennifer: 30:31
The only other thing that I can think of, which people will have a fit about is not lighting your birds in the wintertime and let them be natural and everything and I'm all for it. Let your birds be natural. Hey,
Carey: 30:46
you, do you if that's what you
Jennifer: 30:46
want. Yes. If you, it's your farm, your rules, you can do what you want to. I just have a problem preaching that and going to the store and buying eggs, because if you're buying store bought eggs, those birds are lit up 365 days a year
Carey: 31:03
if you're buying store bought eggs, even the free range ones. Because they put lights in those mobile coops.
Jennifer: 31:13
Yep.
Carey: 31:14
That bird's been light. And if you go, if you buy like the normal, regular old white grade, a large eggs. Most of those birds have never even seen outside. Unless they got a ride from their brooder to the layer house. Yep.
Jennifer: 31:34
So just be mindful of that. If you're anti lighting a bird, then store bought eggs are gonna be lit up.
Carey: 31:41
I publish in an article about it, man, I got people telling me how cruel I was for lighting up my birds. I'm like,
Jennifer: 31:49
The sun
Carey: 31:50
does it every day.
Jennifer: 31:51
So since we have divulged that, the timeline that this was recorded, which was relevant I will say this, that egg harvest season will be coming to an end unless you just have new, a whole bunch of new layers, then they'll lay for another few months. But still put up your eggs. For fall and winter use for yourself. You're raising these birds, so you have their eggs, so save them. You can freeze them. Water, glass them,
Carey: 32:26
Freeze them.
Jennifer: 32:26
I think there's a way to dehydrate them, but I've never done that. But I have done the other and I'm just simply taking all of my clean eggs and putting them in my garage fridge. I'm dating them. The. Cartons and putting'em in the garage fridge and we're just currently eating the dirty eggs. I've got one, they're
Carey: 32:48
good for three or four months.
Jennifer: 32:49
Yeah. And then if you put'em
Carey: 32:51
in the fridge
Jennifer: 32:52
and then if all else fails, we'll just eat quail eggs. A goes, they don't care what time of
Carey: 32:56
year it is.
Jennifer: 32:57
No. So funny story
Carey: 33:00
about those. I have Bob Watts in an outside. Grow cage. And they were on the far side of the barn and I wanted them more on my bedroom side of the house'cause I like to listen to'em. So I moved them and their cage was dirty or whatever, so I had the hose pipe over there, refilling waters. And I, it's a hot day, so I spray the cage down, get any clumps that are attached to the floor off. The birds, like they were out in the rain, the whole nine yards. So you would think that stresses them out. The very next day I go out there and there's a crap ton of eggs in the rollout trace. Oh, nice. Yep. Seriously. Thought about hedge.
Jennifer: 33:53
We're not gonna say you can't.
Carey: 33:57
That's right.
Jennifer: 33:57
Matching addiction. That's why we're here to feed each other's addiction and feed y'all's addiction to birds.
Carey: 34:04
Far be it for me to be an enabler.
Jennifer: 34:08
All right. We will be back next week.
Carey: 34:12
Yep. Be sure to give us a, like a follow click that five star if you love us. Leave us a review, send us an email at info@poultrynerds.com. I think we have it disabled now on our streamy yard page where you can't leave us a comment there. That's really a stupid feature because you, we can't reply to you. So I think we've got that turned off where you can't do it now. That's great. Shoot us an email. We love helping people out and hey, look, you may ask us a question that becomes a show topic. There you go.