What does your winter prep checklist look like?
The weather just started dipping into the 40's overnight, which kicks me into winter prep mode. After two years on our little farm, and lots of hours on this forum, Here's the list I've started. What do you do?
1. Load the run with new wood chips, at least 6" deep
2. Scrape the coop (roosts and walls)
...I'm thinking about sanitizing too. Heard something about using a spray but can't remember what that was....
3. Check littler depth (doing deep litter) and shovel out if too high to make through winter, or too dirty.
4. Empty all nesting boxes. Restock with fresh sawdust and herbs
5. Stock up on sawdust, DE and StallDry for the litter.
6. Check all hatches and frames for rat/snake entry points and fill (I find more problems in the winter when the critters are looking for food and warmth)
7. Dig out the water-warmer and heat lamp for coldest nights
8. Setup dirtbath box (once it gets super cold, they spend more time inside and less ranging and dirtbathing)
9. Worm the flock (I also worm the pig and alpacas... everyone at once to minimize recontamination)
10. Process the spring hatchlings for winter eating (and minimizing the crowd in the coop)
11. Integrate the spring hatchling hens to the rest of the flock
12. Turn the segregated meat bird/main flock coop back into a merged coop
I had to Edit because I almost forgot to add:
13. Setup fermented feed buckets (I only ferment in winter... they get lots from ranging during the summer and the feed ferments too fast to keep up with)
Wow, once I started writing, that got long!
Looking forward to your contributions!
The weather just started dipping into the 40's overnight, which kicks me into winter prep mode. After two years on our little farm, and lots of hours on this forum, Here's the list I've started. What do you do?
1. Load the run with new wood chips, at least 6" deep
2. Scrape the coop (roosts and walls)
...I'm thinking about sanitizing too. Heard something about using a spray but can't remember what that was....
3. Check littler depth (doing deep litter) and shovel out if too high to make through winter, or too dirty.
4. Empty all nesting boxes. Restock with fresh sawdust and herbs
5. Stock up on sawdust, DE and StallDry for the litter.
6. Check all hatches and frames for rat/snake entry points and fill (I find more problems in the winter when the critters are looking for food and warmth)
7. Dig out the water-warmer and heat lamp for coldest nights
8. Setup dirtbath box (once it gets super cold, they spend more time inside and less ranging and dirtbathing)
9. Worm the flock (I also worm the pig and alpacas... everyone at once to minimize recontamination)
10. Process the spring hatchlings for winter eating (and minimizing the crowd in the coop)
11. Integrate the spring hatchling hens to the rest of the flock
12. Turn the segregated meat bird/main flock coop back into a merged coop
I had to Edit because I almost forgot to add:
13. Setup fermented feed buckets (I only ferment in winter... they get lots from ranging during the summer and the feed ferments too fast to keep up with)
Wow, once I started writing, that got long!
Looking forward to your contributions!
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