4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[mizhaw]

My 8 year old daughter is beginning to collect data today for her science fair project. We are going to test the generally accepted notion that chickens lay fewer eggs as the days become shorter. Our housekeeper who has her own chickens says that in our milder climate, there is no change in the number of eggs laid. So we are going to test her assertion against the generally accepted wisdom.

 

If you would be interested in contributing data to our project, either actual or anecdotal, it would be much appreciated. We thought it would be interesting to include observations from different climates and/or lattitudes. We will be collecting the following actual data: date, AM temp, PM temp, sunrise time, sunset time, number of eggs laid, whether or not it rained. We will be recording from now (November 1) until November 30.

 

I think it will be an interesting experiment.

 

[Space Chick]

I am happy to help you and your daughter with this. I record the number of eggs daily anyway, so can easily PM you this and temperature. I will PM you

[Patricia W]

Well, I can tell you that my pure breeds have shut up shop for the winter. I expect them to lay again around Valentine's day.

 

So is one variable to be collected, what sort of hen is it? I think it will be mainly hybrids who continue laying. But maybe that is a bit complex for an 8 year olds project! I'm near Oxford by the way in case that's worth recording..

 

Tricia

[mizhaw]

I want to thank everyone who helped me with this project. My daughter advanced from hr school competition where she took second place to the regional competition where she received an honorable mention.

 

We had one respondent from the state of Connecticut here in the US helping as well as a respondent from Wales. Our respondent from Wales experienced a more significant drop in egg prodution as the days became shorter than our US responder and we barely noticed any change. Of course, we only recorded for the month of November and we did experience some drop off in December and January. But we could never pin it on daylight alone. We thought temperature and rainfall may have had some effect also.

 

Anyway, it was an interesting project and lots of fun for my daughter to get results from the UK so thanks again.

[Egluntyne]

Thanks for the update mizhaw, and congratulations to your daughter.

[Lewis]

Well done to her