2018 Newbie Chat!

[llombardo]

That's only 24 degrees F...if you bring them in you may force them to molt.
Chickens are designed to be able to easily withstand those temps.
There are many BYC keepers whose birds roost in trees and they're fine.
We have the same temps here in Idaho and the people down the street have probably 25 peacocks and they all roost in these huge trees and they're fine.
They don't have skin like people, they have a thick feather jacket on.
What is happening in the mid-west of the US right now is unusual and very dangerous with windchill temps approaching -70 F!!
If that were me I would be bringing my birds in the garage or something.

It's bad. Mine are all inside. There is no way I felt even a little bit comfortable kerping them outside in this.

 

[Anna Ranieri]

That's only 24 degrees F...if you bring them in you may force them to molt.
Chickens are designed to be able to easily withstand those temps.
There are many BYC keepers whose birds roost in trees and they're fine.
We have the same temps here in Idaho and the people down the street have probably 25 peacocks and they all roost in these huge trees and they're fine.
They don't have skin like people, they have a thick feather jacket on.
What is happening in the mid-west of the US right now is unusual and very dangerous with windchill temps approaching -70 F!!
If that were me I would be bringing my birds in the garage or something.

I'm glad you've told me this because we actually have the ducks indoors now but opted to keep the chickens outside as they seem to be doing fine but I have been worrying I may have made the wrong decision but after reading your post I now know I haven't
As for the ducks, our reason for bringing them in came from my daughter noticing our drakes had red patches on their feet and Napoleon has a little black on his, which is how frostbite starts on ducks, now we both know this probably isn't but after much discussion we both decided we are not prepared to take the risk because Indian Runners are prone to frostbite more so than other breeds and are known for not being able to handle cold conditions very well at all, plus take longer to aclimatise than most ducks do. They were fine when we just had frost and ice but now we have snow which has lain they were struggling at keeping warm and when those patches appeared and did so very quickly, it worried us so much we both felt it better to be safe than sorry. We have all the ducks in even though our duck hens have been doing just fine at handling the snow, cold winds, frost and ice because they hate being separated and got so distressed when we took the boys in. I have them in my bedroom as my bedroom is back of the bungalow and so is easier for us to have them in there rather than in the middle room's. We've completely covered my floor with tarpaulin to protect my carpet plus it's so easy to wipe clean when needed, we've spread some wood chips over the tarpaulin and made a woodchip and hay bed for them in a corner they favoured when in there during the day. They took a little while to settle but have settled well now and are fast asleep on their bed we made for them. I'm no expert but I think the biggest problem isn't so much that it's cold ( we are at -4°c at present) but more because there is very big temp changes so quickly i.e. we went from -2°c to 9°c in just a few hours then back down to -1°c a few hours later and then on to -4°c shortly after that. And noticed of the drakes they kept shivering even with the duvet and blanket to sit on, then they kept holding up their feet one at a time and is when my daughter spotted the patches and they showed signs of finding it hard to adjust to the temp changes. We have decided to keep them in for as long as it takes, especially as we noticed a remarkable change in them after bringing them in and them getting warmed up.
Pedro appeared quite down at some points but brightened up when the sun came out, she has been quieter than usual so when the snow laid thick we added even more wood chips to the wood chips we have on the floor of the run and shut them in the run for the rest of the afternoon and onto their bedtime. This worked really well for Pedro who got back to her usual perky self and the others showed no sign of being bothered about being in the run so all is good. Having the run covered as much as we have is working very well too, at the back of the run which is completely covered (and is where their hutch is) showed as 2°c even though it is -4 outside of the run. Pedro stayed at the back of the run mostly. We keep checking for any signs of frostbite on their feet and combs and there isn't any so all good there too.
I realise many may not agree with our decision to bring in the ducks but it's the decision we have made for what we believe is the best for our drakes.
We also realise you guys have a much colder climate than we do but for us who rarely get weather conditions under 1°c it's taking a bit of getting used to. At the end of the day we all do what we believe is best for our flocks whatever decisions we make, I'm just thankful to you for posting this about the chickens as you have put my mind at rest so thank you very much for doing so

 

[Anna Ranieri]

Yay Roo!
Her eggs should get bigger during the next few months and then level off in size.
And yes, a lot of large breeds only lay small-medium eggs and small breeds lay large-extra large.

Thank you

 

[Anna Ranieri]

It is presently -27 here without the windchill. I put a heater in the bathroom with the ducks to try to keep it at 40.

I wonder if those heat pads can be put in with ducks in a duck house?(thinking about next year)

The dogs back legs went in the air and they couldn't move at about 3 minutes. I had to run out there and get my older golden moving. Nothing like a blast of that air hitting you...

I'm super worried about the rabbits. I keep praying for them. I haven't saw them, so I'm hoping they are in one of the hiding places I have out there.

Could they have burrowed perhaps? We live on heath land surrounded by woodlands and usually we see lots of rabbits hopping about but since our temps have dropped we haven't seen any and when taking a walk through some woods I noticed a couple of burrow holes and am wondering if yours have hone under ground too.
Hopefully all is well hun and as the weather warms - when it does - hopefully you'll catch a sight of them soon.

 

[llombardo]

Could they have burrowed perhaps? We live on heath land surrounded by woodlands and usually we see lots of rabbits hopping about but since our temps have dropped we haven't seen any and when taking a walk through some woods I noticed a couple of burrow holes and am wondering if yours have hone under ground too.
Hopefully all is well hun and as the weather warms - when it does - hopefully you'll catch a sight of them soon.

This breed here does not burrow under ground. Hopefully they are snuggled in the straw or in the coop which I eft open for them.

It's suppose tobe almost 50 eith rain on Sunday.

There is no way to acclimate in this whacko weather--it's imposdible.

 

[CannedMonster]

I'm glad you've told me this because we actually have the ducks indoors now but opted to keep the chickens outside as they seem to be doing fine but I have been worrying I may have made the wrong decision but after reading your post I now know I haven't
As for the ducks, our reason for bringing them in came from my daughter noticing our drakes had red patches on their feet and Napoleon has a little black on his, which is how frostbite starts on ducks, now we both know this probably isn't but after much discussion we both decided we are not prepared to take the risk because Indian Runners are prone to frostbite more so than other breeds and are known for not being able to handle cold conditions very well at all, plus take longer to aclimatise than most ducks do. They were fine when we just had frost and ice but now we have snow which has lain they were struggling at keeping warm and when those patches appeared and did so very quickly, it worried us so much we both felt it better to be safe than sorry. We have all the ducks in even though our duck hens have been doing just fine at handling the snow, cold winds, frost and ice because they hate being separated and got so distressed when we took the boys in. I have them in my bedroom as my bedroom is back of the bungalow and so is easier for us to have them in there rather than in the middle room's. We've completely covered my floor with tarpaulin to protect my carpet plus it's so easy to wipe clean when needed, we've spread some wood chips over the tarpaulin and made a woodchip and hay bed for them in a corner they favoured when in there during the day. They took a little while to settle but have settled well now and are fast asleep on their bed we made for them. I'm no expert but I think the biggest problem isn't so much that it's cold ( we are at -4°c at present) but more because there is very big temp changes so quickly i.e. we went from -2°c to 9°c in just a few hours then back down to -1°c a few hours later and then on to -4°c shortly after that. And noticed of the drakes they kept shivering even with the duvet and blanket to sit on, then they kept holding up their feet one at a time and is when my daughter spotted the patches and they showed signs of finding it hard to adjust to the temp changes. We have decided to keep them in for as long as it takes, especially as we noticed a remarkable change in them after bringing them in and them getting warmed up.
Pedro appeared quite down at some points but brightened up when the sun came out, she has been quieter than usual so when the snow laid thick we added even more wood chips to the wood chips we have on the floor of the run and shut them in the run for the rest of the afternoon and onto their bedtime. This worked really well for Pedro who got back to her usual perky self and the others showed no sign of being bothered about being in the run so all is good. Having the run covered as much as we have is working very well too, at the back of the run which is completely covered (and is where their hutch is) showed as 2°c even though it is -4 outside of the run. Pedro stayed at the back of the run mostly. We keep checking for any signs of frostbite on their feet and combs and there isn't any so all good there too.
I realise many may not agree with our decision to bring in the ducks but it's the decision we have made for what we believe is the best for our drakes.
We also realise you guys have a much colder climate than we do but for us who rarely get weather conditions under 1°c it's taking a bit of getting used to. At the end of the day we all do what we believe is best for our flocks whatever decisions we make, I'm just thankful to you for posting this about the chickens as you have put my mind at rest so thank you very much for doing so

You guys just need to do what you feel is best.
I don’t know anything about ducks but I’ve heard runners are more susceptible to cold.
I’ve heard other types of ducks are very cold hardy.
I just mentioned about the chickens because when I had Pip in the garage she had a partial molt and she’s not even old enough to molt.
Our garage held steady at 50 degrees F (10 degrees C) and yet that seemed to be warm for her and it’s like her body was trying shed extra feathers or something.
I was concerned though because I knew she’d be going back outside.
She’s still looking pretty raggedy but is weathering the cold just fine.
They all are actually.
We’re having overnight temps in the low 20s (-6 to -4) and daytime highs in the mid 40s (6-8 C).
I’m not worried at all.
It was the same last year.
We’ve had it get down to 8 degrees F overnight and they don’t care at all lol.
Yours will do great! Don’t worry you’re a good chicken mom!

llombardo’s situation out there is quite different though.
She has to keep them out of that wind chill and if her coop doesn’t do the job then of course she’s going to bring them in.

BTW...I just love the nifty Google tool where you can type in the Fahrenheit temp and it’ give you the Celsius or vise versa. Very helpful!

 

[CannedMonster]

It's bad. Mine are all inside. There is no way I felt even a little bit comfortable kerping them outside in this.

Yeah I’ve been watching the news on it.
I feel for you guys!!
Hold on it’ll get better soon!
Stay warm friend!

 

[llombardo]

You guys just need to do what you feel is best.
I don’t know anything about ducks but I’ve heard runners are more susceptible to cold.
I’ve heard other types of ducks are very cold hardy.
I just mentioned about the chickens because when I had Pip in the garage she had a partial molt and she’s not even old enough to molt.
Our garage held steady at 50 degrees F (10 degrees C) and yet that seemed to be warm for her and it’s like her body was trying shed extra feathers or something.
I was concerned though because I knew she’d be going back outside.
She’s still looking pretty raggedy but is weathering the cold just fine.
They all are actually.
We’re having overnight temps in the low 20s (-6 to -4) and daytime highs in the mid 40s (6-8 C).
I’m not worried at all.
It was the same last year.
We’ve had it get down to 8 degrees F overnight and they don’t care at all lol.
Yours will do great! Don’t worry you’re a good chicken mom!

llombardo’s situation out there is quite different though.
She has to keep them out of that wind chill and if her coop doesn’t do the job then of course she’s going to bring them in.

BTW...I just love the nifty Google tool where you can type in the Fahrenheit temp and it’ give you the Celsius or vise versa. Very helpful!

It's not so much the coop but the run. I think the coop itself is fine but the run(which is only covered with netting) is just a mess. Everything is frozen. A normal winter would have been fine, but this is not normal. I can't even get in there.

I do question the safety of even a regular winter and the runner ducks. I completely agree that they are not that hardy.

I'm fine with the chickens down to about 5-10 degrees but the ducks-under 20 might be an issue.

If the run is roofed that takes the element of snow/wet which will make a difference,especially the ducks.

I have observed and learned quite a bit the last couple days. I'm more determined then ever to get a new coop built and roof the run. For next winter I will get more heated roost bars and a few of those cozy heaters. I kept some nice branches to make roost bars. My plan is 16x16 coop with about 4x16 of that being for Sir Duke and the rest for the rest of them. Duke will also have the outside run area(which will be 4 ft widex15 long. So I will have two pop doors for them.

That's the plan..I have more ideas as the days go by...lol

 

[PNW_Peepers]

Jeez you guys. Stay safe, those temps are nothing to mess around with. We’re hanging steady in the 40’s here in the PNW. It hasn’t even frozen yet. I candled all seven eggs in the incubator, only one is viable. The other six didn’t develop. A localish feed store will have chicks in the day after hatch day. If it hatches I’ll just buy a couple mates for it.

 

[No More Empty Nest]

My chickens and my daughters are doing fine with their little heat panels. My daughter's are still laying so that's good. Eggs are flash frozen though. Most are cracked because of it.
It's supposed to get to -24 tonight. My only problem is their water heater can't keep up, the water was frozen this morning. My daughter's is working better, no ice at all. My chickens had pecked a nice hole in the ice and got to the water before I got outside. Their run was really nice today. Protected from the wind and the sun was shining. I realized that quite by accident my coop and run are perfectly aligned for the sun. The sun shines under the roof onto the coop in winter but not in summer.
It's going to get up to -4 tomorrow!! Heat wave, lol!