It is normal for chickens to decrease their production in winter.
I don’t light my chickens, but for maximum production, chickens need at least 14 hours of light.
In the old days alarm clocks were often used to turn a light on. As the alarm ran down, a string, connected to the key that winds the alarm, when connected properly would wind up some string, pulling a switch. Today we have modern inexpensive “appliance timers” to do this job, without the hassles of figuring something out for a mechanism to turn them on.
The purpose of the light, or what it actually does is to stimulate the pituitary gland of the chickens through eye, stimulating greater laying. I personally believe what it really does is increase their “working day” or provide more light and therefore more time to eat. Chickens do lay more if they eat more.
You don’t need a large amount of light for your chickens. Generally I just put a 40 or 60 watt bulb on a timer. This will allow the chickens to lay very similar to the warmer months with the longer days.
The common recommendation I have seen is a 15 watt bulb 3′ above the feeder. The water should also be close enough to have a good amount of light. The chickens should have the light when they eat as well as when they roost.
I do know that often people run the lights 24 hours, but I believe in letting them sleep, in the dark, so I set the light to come on in the morning. I calculate the time by watching them to to roost. If they roost at 5 P.M. I set the timer to turn the lights on at 3 or 4 A.M.
3 A.M. is the recommended time as this gives them the recommended 14 hours of light. Basically you can just set the timer 14 hours before sunset.
The big thing to remember is that if you have a power failure, the timer must be reset.
By putting chickens in darkness and light for certain periods that you control you can “force molt” them. If the lights get way off from just providing some early morning light, I have read that you can start this process. This is very undesirable, unless you are controlling the light and forcing them to all molt at the same time.
Sometimes things they do with large flocks is way more than it is worth for the backyard farmer.
Enjoyed your stories. They sound familiar to our experiences except we don’t have any neighbors to worry about. Possums have been our bigget problem. At least I think its a possum cause my friend caught one in a live trap and it ate just the chickens head same as ours. We had golden comet sexlinks and man could they lay. A hawk swwoped down & picked one up but gave up after about three flaps of his wings. She was so fat he had to drop her. I thought I would drop from laughing. Sounds like you enjoy your girls as much as we do ours. We’re in Florida.
I have seen possums up here. Wasn’t aware that they ate chickens. I do know raccoons generally will just eat the heads off, unless it is a female feeding her young, then they sometimes carry one off. Generally they kill just to kill.
Chickens make for a great hobby. I came in the yard one day and found a goshawk sitting on one of my Wyandottes. Miraculously she survived.