Why won't my chickens go outside????????

[celticfarmer]

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Yeah, its pretty sweet to have snow when it gets dark around 4:30 in the evening and when you get home you have to shovel the frozen snow bank out of your driveway that the plow guy left for you because he thinks you don't have enough to do.

That being said, I do love winter.

 

[LuckyDozen Farm]

Hey maybe we could start our own reality show...Like Wife Swap, but with chicken farms...LMAO!! Yeah I would prob enjoy snow just long enough to build my first snowman, and that would be it...

 

[celticfarmer]

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I would swap you, however I am fairly certain I would sweat to death. A guy with a built in sweater can only go so far south. St. Joe, MO is as far as I dare venture.

 

[babalubird]

"A guy with a built-in sweater can only go so far south."

I'll have to run that one buy my fuzzy little New-York-born hubby, now living in central Texas. He can relate, I'm sure.

Connie

 

[celticfarmer]

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Sure does come in handy when its so cold outside your spit freezes before it hits the ground.


Just to keep this comment relevant to the thread though, none of the girls have left the coop since I evicted them for cleaning and I got 5 eggs yesterday and 4 so far today.

Maybe there is nothing to be concerned about.

 

[Mrs MIA]

I don't know that you really need to worry. I'd stay inside if I didn't have to go out either.

(and I have a confession to make... I have about 60 birds in a coop built for half that number........ cuts on heating bills.)

 

[celticfarmer]

Mrs. AK-Bird-Brain :

........ cuts on heating bills.)

That's why I do it....

 

[Mrs MIA]

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That's why I do it....

Yeah, people ask me all the time what I use to heat the coop... I tell them that more chickens is my heat-source of choice!

I know... I'm a nut.

 

[jbrown_14105]

Greetings,
My chickens do come out if.... I shovel off the grass/yard abit so that they can eat (pull) grass right off first after getting out of the coop.(if there is snow on the ramp well that's another story!) One stuck her head out, looked around and went back inside to report about the snow...much clucking going on and nobody came out till the snow was shoveled off the ramp.
My 5 hens (RIReds) will most all the time lay 5 eggs, sometimes 2-3 in the morning around 8:00am and after free-ranging abit they go back into the coop to finish laying and get a drink of water. All 5 eggs are in the same nesting box even though there is 6 nesting boxs
They don't like the snow and the littlest snow "drift" slows them up and if the bottom feathers rub on the snow well that's unexceptable! They don't seem bothered by the cold too much, and here in Lockport NY we have had snow & cold now for a week and it's not letting up, there is about 12 inches of snow right now and 23 degrees for the evening.
A little bird seed right near the coop door/ramp just before dusk seems to be a "treat" and then they go to roost, before I tried that they were sometimes staying out after dark, driveway/barn lights were bright enough I guess to keep them "awake"?
Jim Brown
Lockport NY

 

[celticfarmer]

I just feel bad because all they do is eat and sit around, I want them to get out and exercise.

I guess all they really need now are cheetos and some video games. They are teenagers after all.