Iluveggers
Enabler
Putting tarp on the windy side of the run, along w a few stacked hay bales (on the outside) to keep the chicken door entrance to the outside completely out of the wind.
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Haha don't miss Western MA or VT winters. One....little....bit...! I raised chickens and turkeys in Western MA from '88-'08. Moved to non freezing NorCal in '08 and the rest is history. No more frozen eggs, frozen water, frozen combs or anything! Good luck and Happy Holidays.I was hoping to get a real roof on the run this summer/fall, but came back from Thanksgiving trip to find snow on the ground and that it's suddenly winter here in Vermont. Right now it's about half covered with plywood scraps. Just put up a mirror for the girls, am going to pot up a big stalk of kale from my garden, let it freeze in place, and bring it in.
if you have a tarp that lets light in (like an old car-snow-tent aka Tempo) or a painter's tarp, or some 6mil plastic, it helps to have it be light.I might try and make some kind of angled tarp canopy off the trees. So the snow will slide off and provide wind protection all at the same time.
Your chickens look really healthy!It's already my habit to collect supplement for them from kitchen scraps. Besides, as we have raw-fed dogs and cats, I will also add some cooked meat scraps, organs, fishes like Sprattus and Sardines into their daily feed.
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They love their feed and always empty that within 10 minutes
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Do you give them the possibility to range in the barn too? And did you add bedding on the barn floor?We moved our coop into an empty barn stall today. Realized after our first big snow that having it in the main yard wasn’t going to work, what with snow falling off all the eaves and trees. Also, they will be protected from the wind in there.
We learned here in our town if we roofed our run it would be taxed as another building. So we tarped it last Fall, 8x16. You have to push up the tarp and remove the puddles or snow and we went thru Winter just fine! Best of luck!I was hoping to get a real roof on the run this summer/fall, but came back from Thanksgiving trip to find snow on the ground and that it's suddenly winter here in Vermont. Right now it's about half covered with plywood scraps. Just put up a mirror for the girls, am going to pot up a big stalk of kale from my garden, let it freeze in place, and bring it in.