Frostbite advice

[DiamondRFarm]

We have had a relatively mild winter (WV) with temps in the 20s and 30s at night or higher. The temps have dropped into single digits the past two nights, wind chill below zero. Two of the chickens ended up with frost bite. I have had a heat lamp in the house, i use it ehen it drops below 30. I have been building a deep bedding but will be adding to it now. I am also going to make adjustments to improve the ventilation. This is my first winter with chickens. Any advice or tips will be greatly appreciated! Is there anything i can do to help heal and or prevent frostbite?

 

[Dona Worry]

The advice I have been getting for a similar problem is bring them in the house, warm them up, and don't touch the frozen bits.

 

[rabiee]

Put petroleum jelly on their combs will help prevent frostbite also. It doesn't look too bad right now, so there is a chance it may heal up nicely.

 

[azygous]

Preventing frostbite is a lot easier than trying to heal it. Once the tissue freezes, there's no going back, and depending on how deeply the tissue froze, those chicken parts will probably turn black and dry and then fall away.

As @Dona Worry pointed out, don't touch the frost bitten tissue. More damage will occur. Also, frost bite is very, very painful. You can, however, help the chicken by reducing the pain. Give one baby aspirin twice a day.

I have space heaters in my coop set to the lowest setting to keep the coops just above freezing. One heater is an oil filled electric heater and the other is a flat heater specially designed for chicken coops. You do need ventilation, especially if you have high humidity. The chickens add to the humidity with their breathing vapor. That needs to be exhausted from the coop with proper air circulation.

A lot of folks will insist that you shouldn't heat coops at all, but when I tried that, the result was severe frostbite, so not heating my coops doesn't work for me. You'll need to try things and see what works best for you.

 

[DiamondRFarm]

Put petroleum jelly on their combs will help prevent frostbite also. It doesn't look too bad right now, so there is a chance it may heal up nicely.

I plan to do that. I was told not to use in extreme temps below the freezing point of the vaseline. It can cause the frost bite if to that point. I didn't look up the freezing point until recently. It said -40 something. ‍ I think I'm safe to use it haha. Thanks for the advice.