Best foods? Bedding? Basking? Harvesting?

[Mrs. K]

Another option for the run, is the one I use. While I have chain link over the top of the run, it is not covered as in keeping snow out. The weight of snow on a roof is easy to underestimate, even on just fencing. And granted you get more snow than I do, but I thought I would share.

I have two separate shelters in the run, a black plastic box on its side with the 'lid' pulled up for a porch effect. I lean 3 shower curtain clear panels in front of it, creating a sun porch, that is amazingly warmer under there on sunshiny days. This faces due south, catches the heat in the morning to mid day.

The second is a piece of metal used to line basement bedroom windows. I cover that with a sheet of tin, and lean up a covid acrylic plastic shield against it too. This is faced southwest, and picks up the late afternoon sun.

The other thing I do, is add mini haystacks about 3-4 feet high. When I know a storm is coming, I make the stack. After the snow, I will flip this old hay on top of the snow, and out they come.

May not work for you, but works for me and mine.

Mrs K

 

[NatJ]

My chickens also cannot go outside in the winter because there are loose dogs and our 6 ft high fence gets buried in snow. (The chickens also hate the snow It is common in the winter for there to be blizzards and whiteouts a few times a month.

Since you say the run is unavailable for much of the winter, you may want to allow extra space for the chickens inside the coop (as if the coop were an indoor run). That could mean enlarging the coop, or keeping fewer chickens, as compared with the number that can be comfortable in the summer when the run is available to them.

What are some of the best foods for mixed flocks that are high in calories and protein percentage so my birds are able to eat enough?

Chick starter can be a reasonable choice for chickens of any age. Hens that are laying will also need a source of calcium (oyster shell), but other than that it works fine for all ages.

If you are worried about them eating enough, you certainly can make their day longer with light as you mentioned. You can also give them a snack in the middle of the time that would be dark, by turning the light on for a bit (half an hour or an hour or so), and then let them go back to sleep.

If you want them to eat quickly, like for a late night snack, you may want to offer them wet mash (chicken food plus water). Chickens will often eat that more quickly than eating dry food and drinking water separately. They also seem to enjoy it, and you know they got both food and water.

I'm hatching chicks and am going to try to find the friendly/chill roosters good homes. Any aggressive ones I will probably eat because they're too dangerous to be around little kids and house sitters (one of our house sitters was super scared of going into the coop because of how aggressive our last rooster was.) What is the best way to humanely harvest them? Would using a 22 be less painful and stressful for the roo than an axe? I want to try to make sure they feel little pain and stress.

For humanely harvesting a rooster, if you can do a single chop with an axe, that is a pretty good choice. Apart from being fast for the bird, I find it reassuring for me to see the head separate from the body as it flaps wildly, so I know I did not mess up and leave the chicken alive and in pain.

The best way to kill a chicken is the one you can do correctly, so it differs from one person to another. If someone is not comfortable using an axe, that is not going to be a good choice for them. In any case, the goal is to have the chicken lose consciousness quickly (as close to instantly as possible.)

Discussions about this are pretty common in the meat section of the forum, so you might want to browse threads there to see other perspectives.