We have five 8 month old hens/pullets living in an unheated coop in Maine. The weather has been terribly cold lately since around Christmas, and the winds can be downright terrible. The coop does not allow any wind to blow anywhere near the roosting area. I don't have exactly 1 sq ft of ventilation per bird (more like 0.8 sq ft), but the ventilation is strategically laid out with upper and lower venting to maximize draft-free air flow, so I didn't think I had a ventilation problem. The coop has a shed roof and vents at the peak (along with indirect cold air inlets) so I thought I had a good design...
Two girls have full sized single combs (both barred Plymouth rocks) and all comb tips are showing signs of frostbite. But even the two pullets (same age, but they haven't started laying yet) have TINY single combs (not even 1/2 inch tall to the tips, an australorp and Rhode Island red) yet even those are now showing signs of cold stress, too.
We have not hardly had any daytime highs above single digits (deg F) for a couple weeks. The lowest overnight temp (so far) was -18 deg F. Winds are frequently brutal but these goof balls really dislike being in their coop during the day (even with it's warm welcoming light switched on) and would rather be outside - even if it's bitterly cold. So we built them a lean-to shelter out of a garden window and they can hang out in the run outside, but the shelter doesn't let the wind hit them. However it is VERY well ventilated. Only on the most brutal days do they linger in the coop for an extra hour in the morning or turn in 30 minutes early for the night...
There is a heated waterer in their coop that they use. It never freezes (except overnight when I swap the heated one out with an unheated one just before the get ready for bed; the unheated one is fine for one last drink session before roosting. The heated one is stored in the house and I place it back in the coop every morning before they get up). We also check on them every 30-90 minutes throughout the day (depending on conditions) and offer them water by hand each time. Sometimes they drink, sometimes they're not interested. All that to say the SHOULD be well hydrated. The layers continue to lay most every day in this very brutal weather, for instance.
Yet in the mornings they often have a noticeable amount of frost on the outsides of their shoulder feathers. So the questions:
1.) Does the frost on their feathers indicate I have inadequate ventilation in their coop? If they sleep with their heads under their wings I couldn't imagine how they would NOT get frost there in these cold temps. But then their combs should be protected, I'd think.
2.) They have no older hens to teach them and we've never kept chickens before. Could it be they don't know to tuck their heads under their wings all night, every night? They almost never have their heads tucked in when we check on them on the roost each night (though they usually have only been on the roost for 5-10 minutes). Overnight lows dropped from upper/mid-twenties (deg F) to -10 deg F in two nights. Daytime highs dropped from above freezing to single digits in the same period. They didn't get a lot of time to acclimate!
3.) Could this fast cold snap combined with young age be a factor in the combs' susceptibility to frostbite?
Note their wattles are in pristine condition. We had been "conditioning" the barred rocks combs with a light coating of melted coconut oil every other day since we got concerned about cold stress (details below). Once we saw the smaller combs exhibiting cold stress we started conditioning those, too. But the comb tips still seem to be on a downward trend. We're now stepping up to trying to condition every day instead of every other day.
Any thoughts? I would have thought the coop ventilation adequate.
The only mistake I can see that we made was unfortunately we didn't realize dry combs are more susceptible to frost bite. So we didn't start applying coconut oil until after the barred rock comb tips started looking real pale; perhaps 2-3 days after we first noticed the paleness beginning? We didn't repeat that mistake with the smaller combs. However ever since we started moisturizing the barred rocks, the tips continued to get paler... now the very tips have gone black. So I can't imagine they won't lose some tips as the temperatures are probably just going to get colder for the rest of the month. We are monitoring them closely for any signs of infection. Apart from the coconut oil, I'm at a loss of what else we can do. Thanks in advance!
Two girls have full sized single combs (both barred Plymouth rocks) and all comb tips are showing signs of frostbite. But even the two pullets (same age, but they haven't started laying yet) have TINY single combs (not even 1/2 inch tall to the tips, an australorp and Rhode Island red) yet even those are now showing signs of cold stress, too.
We have not hardly had any daytime highs above single digits (deg F) for a couple weeks. The lowest overnight temp (so far) was -18 deg F. Winds are frequently brutal but these goof balls really dislike being in their coop during the day (even with it's warm welcoming light switched on) and would rather be outside - even if it's bitterly cold. So we built them a lean-to shelter out of a garden window and they can hang out in the run outside, but the shelter doesn't let the wind hit them. However it is VERY well ventilated. Only on the most brutal days do they linger in the coop for an extra hour in the morning or turn in 30 minutes early for the night...
There is a heated waterer in their coop that they use. It never freezes (except overnight when I swap the heated one out with an unheated one just before the get ready for bed; the unheated one is fine for one last drink session before roosting. The heated one is stored in the house and I place it back in the coop every morning before they get up). We also check on them every 30-90 minutes throughout the day (depending on conditions) and offer them water by hand each time. Sometimes they drink, sometimes they're not interested. All that to say the SHOULD be well hydrated. The layers continue to lay most every day in this very brutal weather, for instance.
Yet in the mornings they often have a noticeable amount of frost on the outsides of their shoulder feathers. So the questions:
1.) Does the frost on their feathers indicate I have inadequate ventilation in their coop? If they sleep with their heads under their wings I couldn't imagine how they would NOT get frost there in these cold temps. But then their combs should be protected, I'd think.
2.) They have no older hens to teach them and we've never kept chickens before. Could it be they don't know to tuck their heads under their wings all night, every night? They almost never have their heads tucked in when we check on them on the roost each night (though they usually have only been on the roost for 5-10 minutes). Overnight lows dropped from upper/mid-twenties (deg F) to -10 deg F in two nights. Daytime highs dropped from above freezing to single digits in the same period. They didn't get a lot of time to acclimate!
3.) Could this fast cold snap combined with young age be a factor in the combs' susceptibility to frostbite?
Note their wattles are in pristine condition. We had been "conditioning" the barred rocks combs with a light coating of melted coconut oil every other day since we got concerned about cold stress (details below). Once we saw the smaller combs exhibiting cold stress we started conditioning those, too. But the comb tips still seem to be on a downward trend. We're now stepping up to trying to condition every day instead of every other day.
Any thoughts? I would have thought the coop ventilation adequate.
The only mistake I can see that we made was unfortunately we didn't realize dry combs are more susceptible to frost bite. So we didn't start applying coconut oil until after the barred rock comb tips started looking real pale; perhaps 2-3 days after we first noticed the paleness beginning? We didn't repeat that mistake with the smaller combs. However ever since we started moisturizing the barred rocks, the tips continued to get paler... now the very tips have gone black. So I can't imagine they won't lose some tips as the temperatures are probably just going to get colder for the rest of the month. We are monitoring them closely for any signs of infection. Apart from the coconut oil, I'm at a loss of what else we can do. Thanks in advance!
