Some people near me are worried that their chickens cannot handle the frigid cold we are experiencing at the moment. For starters, it only got down to 0.9F here last night and there was no wind. Chickens can handle this just fine as long as they have shelter from the wind, unfrozen water and dry bedding.
I have kept chickens since 1974 and we did not have electricity back then. The chickens insisted on sleeping on what amounted to a windowless window sill in our tiny goat barn. The only time they had issues was when it went down to minus 25 for three days. Some of them got frostbite on their combs. They healed quickly and got on with being chickens.
These days, my chickens have a fort Knox kind of coop to protect them from our marauding foxes, coons, possums, weasels and coyotes. There are three rooms. The inner roosting and laying room has windows to the south and a partial concrete floor, the adjoining wired and roofed coop has a skylight and is open on the east side and joins the horse stall on the south side. The third room is inside the horse barn and is where I raise chicks, when we have them. It is kind of dark unless the brood lamps are on and the hens don’t spend much time there.
When we got the (Polar Vortex!) wind advisory, I stapled plastic on the open east side of the chicken coop and the horse stall, which snugged things up. I have heated water buckets for the chickens and the horse, so they have water. I also scattered dry hay in the chicken pen and the horse stall. I use the deep litter method in my barn, meaning that as the manure piles up, more bedding goes on and it sits there, fairly dry and composting all winter. It is warmer than bare ground and the chickens love to scratch around in it. I turn them into the horse stall every couple of weeks to clean up and they help to break down the horse manure. The second horse stall, where I feed and keep the water, is kept as dry hard ground.
My 26 chickens and horse were all fine this morning. Animals get used to cold. Chickens have built in down jackets. Even if their combs freeze, they will be fine. Mara had ice in her whiskers, the same way I had my nose hairs freeze on the way out to the barn. We are all OK.
Maybe if we were to get an extended spell of minus zero temps, I would break down and plug in a couple of brooder lamps. I certainly would if we had young chicks, but the older hens are hardy and seem just fine without supplemental heat.
In 2016 I upgraded my winter water buckets to heated dog bowls for the chickens and dogs (well, more for the wild birds, since the dogs are inside a lot) and a 3 gallon heated bucket for Mara, my horse. This was a major improvement. Daily barn chores became much easier. No more ice chopping and shattered plastic buckets for me.
January 2017 has arrived, with a new division in the hen house holding 25 young Golden Comets, due to start laying in April. They were hatched October 26 (the same day my new granddaughter was born ) and the chicks have all feathered out but still have a Mama Light Bulb to get warm under. With temps in the teens, their unheated waterer has frozen every night for the past week.
This winter we also have three Mallard ducks I could not resist bringing home from the feed store last Spring. They share feed, pasture and barn space with the laying hens and our one Rooster quite well, but they make a complete mess of the communal water bowl. I have to clean and refill their water bowl twice each day. It wasn’t much of a problem when the ducks had their swimming trough outside but I put it and the water hoses away when winter hit.
I was trying to design a waterer that only the chickens could reach and was thinking of a raised platform surrounded by a perch for the chickens to jump up on. Ducks don’t seem able to jump or perch at all, so I figured it would keep them out. Then I saw a Nipple Waterer, which has little drip nozzles that the birds peck at to release the water. Both the chickens and the ducks learned how to work the foot pedaled feeder in only 2 weeks this summer so surely they can learn how to drink from drippers.
The company I purchased the electric (anti-fox) poultry fence from has this Heated Nipple Waterer and I have ordered 2 of them, one for each chicken pen. I can’t wait to set them up.
Premier1Supplies-Heated Poultry Waterer
This will supply all the chickens and ducks with clean, ice free water year round. Handy things like this make me really appreciate having electricity and running water in the house and in the barn!
My ultimate goal is to figure out how to warm and power the barn using solar. I have visions of a sunken greenhouse…
I love that we get names for winter storms now. Instead of having to talk about the “Big Snow of 96” we can say “Yeah, in 2016 Snowstorm Jonas hit Shepherdstown and we got the biggest snowfall on the East Coast! 40.5 inches of snow in one storm! We rock!” Actually we rock around on the floor after shoveling all that snow, in an attempt to ease our aching backs. And then we hang upside down on an inversion table trying to get straightened back up.
The snow is beautiful, but worrisome too. My barn has an awful lot of weight sitting on it and since I built it myself I know I did not plan on dealing with 40 inches of snow back then. I should have used bigger supports, more bracing, etc. I had to lock Mara, my horse, up in the barn for two days during the storm because she was going to let herself get all snowy and cold outside. Then I didn’t sleep very well because I was afraid of the roof collapsing on her. So far it hasn’t but now the weather folks say it might rain tomorrow and that would make the snow REALLY heavy. Considering that it was 8 degrees F this morning it is hard to imagine rain happening, but I think I will still have to see if I can knock some of that snow off, just in case. I put a nice slippery metal roof on 3/4 of the barn roof last year so it should slide. Maybe if I started a fire underneath? Just kidding, not going there.
Barn with new plastic wind guard
OK, just got back inside from shoveling off the part of the barn roof over the horse stalls. It did not slip off at all. I had to push and pull it with a rake and only removed about half but I feel better now.
My little mini greenhouse has not collapsed, which I am happy about, even though there is nothing in there right now. There have been reports of some big hoop houses nearby not making it.
Mini Greenhouse Out in the GardenHappy Chickens
I splurged and bought electric water buckets this year and I am really appreciating them and so are the horse, the chickens and the wild birds. I had to pull the pump from the water garden right before the storm because it got jammed with frogs (it was terrible, their legs were stuck in it) and I did not get it back in before it froze, so there is no open water for the deer and birds and other wild critters. I will put a pump sock around it before I re install it when the pond thaws. I thought that the skimmer box I installed last year was going to keep the frogs out but they found a way around the strainer basket.
I have been using my snowshoes (after adding some additional leather laces to them), that Jeff bought me a couple years ago from REI, to tramp down pathways, one to the road, one to the neighbors barn with the two donkeys , Emma and Elmo. My neighbor is not well enough to make it out there herself and nobody can drive to her house yet. The “Long Ears” were pretty sure I was a monster when I came clomping up to them yesterday and they wern’t much better today. They were snorting and carrying on. They now have a path to their heated water trough, and I gave them hay, so they are good. The guy with the plow is supposed to make it out maybe today or tomorrow and do our shared 600 foot driveway.
our driveway is two snowshoes wide
The paved road out front has one lane opened up by some very nice neighbors with tractors and plows. No highway department yet. They are working on the main roads first. I walked up the road, which is a tunnel of pristine white snow, to help dig out my husbands parents and on the way back some people in a 2 wheel drive car were out there and got stuck, of course. A helpful guy in a pickup , who could have been plowing instead, had to help them get out and I heard him say, “Now please go back where you started and park it. It is only one lane and we need the road clear for emergencies.” Update: the roads department got to it Monday afternoon and now it is almost two lanes wide. I am going to have to dig the mailbox out soon.
No mail for awhile yet…
I have tons of good food put away in the freezer and we have not lost power at all, which is amazing. We rarely do lose it here, although the next house down the road is on a different substation and they lose it all the time. Their lines go through some large trees. We have been eating venison stew, pumpkin pie and our fresh eggs. The chickens have slowed down during this storm but there are plenty for us. I have ordered 50 new chicks to arrive in the spring to replace our old laying hens, and another 25 chicks for eating.
I hear people complaining about being cooped up in the winter, but I love it. I love the excuse to stay inside and do all the things I won’t do when it is too nice outside. When I feel antsy, I go do something energetic outside, and then appreciate coming back in when I get cold. There is time to sit by the fire now and I can read, sew, cook, write. The animals give me a reason to get up and be outside a couple times a day and I am not working at the moment, so I don’t have to go anywhere. It is all good.
