And there wasn't light...

A couple weeks ago, after seeing it grow dark by 6pm and watching the daily egg count take a dive, I decided to get out the extension cord, the timer and the small LED nightlight.  That's right - it's time for some fake sunlight.  I had read sometime last year about someone who had noticed an improvement on winter laying possibly stemming from a simple candle*.  I don't think I want to take the chances of an unguarded, open flame so I opted for electric....  But I also didn't want something that was going to cost a fortune in energy, so I found a small LED nightlight that supposedly costs only pennies a year to run and I also bought a small timer so that I can program when the light is on during the day.  14 hours of daylight is supposed to make the best production.  After hooking it up, I did notice a rise in egg count - yeah!  I really notice it now that for the last two days it hasn't been working and the egg count has dropped again.  I have to do a little testing...our outside plug-in is a little touchy anyway (flips the breaker sporadically) but so far the breaker hasn't flipped and nothing still works.  I plugged in something else directly into the plug-in and that works, so my guess is that the extension cord must have gone crazy.  Ah well...I'd best get to it so I can still keep having tasty eggs for breakfast in the morning... :-) 

*By the way, I can't remember exactly which issue it came from, but the "reading" I mentioned above was from the Backyard Poultry magazine I subscribe to.  SUPER magazine!!  Would highly recommend it to anyone who has poultry...