Don't buy this waterer.

[gtaus]

I usually keep a couple bales of straw on hand when winter arrives and spread some outside each coop and they seem to be much more comfortable coming out. Until I spread straw, most won't come out.

I spread some more bagged leaves in the run this morning. Also, I had 3 small grocery bags full of shredded paper, newspaper, and cardboard from the house which I dumped into the run. A couple hours later, still no chickens outside (it's 0F outside and +7F in the coop). Maybe some will come out later, I hope.

 

[gtaus]

I think you'd see it if you cleared some ground for them and spent enough time observing.

We have about one foot of snow on the ground. My chicken run is not covered, and there is also one foot of snow in the run. I have been throwing some bagged leaves on the snow, but like I posted in a different thread, next year I hope to have a covered run which I think will work much better for my chickens.

Although I'm not outside sitting and observing my chickens, the coop and the run are in my backyard and I can see them clearly from my kitchen, dining room, and my home office. If they come outside, I watch them. Usually, if they come outside, they look around a bit and then run back into the coop.

If I show up with some bread, they will come outside to eat the bread pieces, but when that's all gone, they run back inside. I have tried throwing some whole corn in the run, on top of the leaves, but that was not too successful as the corn will fall into the snow and not get eaten. At that point, it becomes squirrel food because they will dig it out.

If my chickens would eat snow, and if that was enough for them, I would not have to carry any water until May.

 

[gtaus]

gtaus said: What kind of chickens do you have that eat snow?
@aart said: Just regular chickens.

I guess I should have stated more clearly, what kind of chickens do you have that can survive off eating snow and not having to provide water in the winter? There was another thread where some gentleman stated he never gives any water to his birds in the winter. But turns out that he had Icelandic chickens - which are a landrace fowl that had evolved over 1000 years to survive on their own. I don't think most of our newer breeds could survive the winter without fresh water.