cold night/frozen water/chickens seem ok

[VTNEK]

I have been saving table scraps that will not go too bad, on the warmer days for cold spells like we are in now. I also got a deer this year and some of the meat was bruised badly so I ground it like hamburger and froze it for the colder days. I heat it up a little, along with table scraps for a warm treat in the morning. I brought home a road kill deer also that had its hind end badly damaged and that was all ground for the chickens. Its also organic and free. How can you go wrong? Label it very very well and then tell all the family its for chickens not people (I ground in fat, etc, everything edible for them).

The end of November my egg production went from 11 a day to 7. Now I am at 10 a day. I had three chickens that were not getting down to eat the warm food and also were not laying eggs. So (without telling anyone please) I hand fed them some venison and bread. They started getting down and are all laying eggs well now. I have 15 hens but two are still alittle young. I also have a light on a timer. The timer was about $5 a Lowes and on the really colder days I throw on the light a bit longer.

I guess I had to give you some VT advise I insulated my coop with some old under carpet padding and a few friends thought I was crazy for insulating a chicken coop. When they were young chicken coops did not have insulation and the chickens did fine. When pressed though they will admit egg production dropped off some.
Good luck over there.

 

[vermontgal]

Hey VTNEK -

and thanks for the perspectives. I'll keep my eye out for some fresh roadkill. Great idea.
Stay warm up there! Brrr.

 

[FrontPorchIndiana]

I have a larger coop with more chickens, 10x10 w/ 22 birds. It's insulated and all that but when the temps dropped to -10s even the heat lamp didn't prevent frost bite. It seems to have only effected one of my buff orps. The one with the largest comb, and only a tiny little bit on the edges, but it's definitely frost bite.

 

[LynneP]

This is my first flock, so I'm been observing their tolerances, and we've come through winter storm #10 with another coming Monday.

As long as we're at -4Celsius or higher, the hens could care less, even with some wind. I leave the pop door open and would close it only if the winds became dangerously high and might slam the hens into the sides of the roofed run. We added snow boards to minimize this and to cut down on drifting. We're at the top of a hill that gets substantial winds and snow load. Below -4C I don't give water outside lest they freeze wattles or combs.

I start watching carefully below -4C. I let them come and go so long as it's calm and they are spending a reasonable amount of time outside. An outdoor snow platform encourages them and I often offer treats there in a large blue livestock bowl.

It gets dicey for my hens at about -8 or -9C, especially if it's windy. Our wind chills drops suddenly to the -20'sand I find that the birds don't go out, so I close the pop door. Why waste their body heat and send the feed bill over the top? Besides, it's nice to collect eggs that are not frozen. They have 15 sq feet each to play and the coop is interesting, so they avoid those face-off confrontations that could result in aggression.

I find that my heated dog bowl (1.5 gal, Farm Innovators) is a godsend. I like it so much I gave the 3 gal poultry waterer with the heated bast to the barn cats. The heated dog bowl is easy to tip out into a catch bucket, wipes clean and refills in a snap. So what I'm learning is that if the water is liquid, the hens are dry and active and the eggs are not forzen I'm pleased.

Each of us has so many variables- climate, daily weather, breed of bird, age, feathering,. moult, feed quality, insulatin or not, ventilation, and so on...so you have to study your birds and setup and constantly modify until you have it right!

Our have been in for 3 days because of bitter temps and a 30-hour blizzard. At thins point, I need the oil truck to arrive!

 

[VT Chick-lit]

Vermotngal, I am a fellow Vermonter and a first year chicken owner too! I live 5 miles from Canada in the Champlain Islands and have had some -5 degree nights this year already. I have 4 chickens, a Wyondott, an Austrolorp, an EE and a RIR. My small coop (4 X 6 X 5) has no heat or electricity but has insulated walls and roof. It was my DH's old fishing shanty that I renovated as best as I could for my little flock. We put in a large (3 X 2) window that faces south to get some solar gain on the cold sunny days. The run is on the south side of the coop and was covered with plastic panels from an old green house and 6 mil plastic. The plastic was tented over an old, light weight row boat that we placed on the top of the run, to prevent snow build up. So far this set up has worked well and has remained unscathed from all the wind that we get off the lake! The covered run has made a big difference in the coop temps, I think. It can be 0 degrees and windy out side but inside the run the temp is aprox 25 -30 and calm as long as there is any sun. This warmer temp keeps the coop warmer and helps keep out the drafts. I have no humidity problems in the coop or the run and my hens love to go out in the run each day, even the snowy ones.

I feed my girls a warm breakfast of what I call "Chicken Oatmeal" In a jar I mix oatmeal, cornmeal, cream of wheat or any other non-sugared cerial that I have (I use the cheep brands or old/expired packages) I cook up a bowl full by boiling 2 cups of water and adding 1/2 cup of the mix and cook for several minutes. I pour this into a container with a lid and refridgerate it. I scoop out about 1/2 cup of the cold mixture every morning and add hot water to it. I mash up the chunks of cold cerial in the hot water and microwave it for 1 1/2 minutes. I then give this to the chickens with meat scraps (turkey, bones, hamburg etc) and crushed egg shells. The girls love it. I also give them hot water in their plastic 1 gallon waterer. I made covers from some insulating fabric that I had and slide the cover over the bottle part of the waterer, These waterers will stay completely unfrozen all day, even on the coldest days. At night the girls get a cup of scratch to share before they get on their roost.

They seem to be happy and I get 2 eggs a day. One of my hens has just finished a bad mouolt and I am hopeing to get another egg each day soon.