How cold is too cold?

[FaithArthur123999]

Hey guys! I live in the UK and have been experiencing cold weather the past few days. Last night was -6 Celsius which I havent seen for a long time. Its currently snowing and supposed to be between -6 and -7 tomorrow night. I have 5 ex battery hens and 6 ducks (live separately). I am not worried about the ducks as they seem to be doing okay. However my chickens have not been happy for the past few days, they seems to be very stressed by the cold. They are okay during the day when it warms up but early in the morning, they come out and dont really move. This morning one of the girls became very stressed by the cold and she did concern me but she is okay now. All my hens are very very skinny, and 2 are in moult. My vet believes they are just naturally skinny and small as we have done everything to check illness in some of the hens and nothing has come up. Due to how small and slim they are, I dont think the cold wether is suiting them well. I delivery hot porridge/wheat/corn in the mornings to help perk them up but I am really worried about them. Ive read that I shouldnt bring them in of a night as this can mess up their ability to cope with the cold wether, but where do you draw the line with possible death? They arent as hardy as the ducks and I am scared they will get too cold in the night. They have atleast 10inches of bedding and we have packed it up the sides of the coop walls, we even have blankets over the coop to. We dont have the option of running electric down to them so cant use any type of heaters. Any advice as to wether I should leave them out or bring them in?6q

 

[saysfaa]

I'm a big proponent of the idea that chickens adapt to cold very well.

But not every chicken in every situation.

In your case, I would take them inside when it is that cold. I would make a place in the coldest part area of inside to make the transition in and back out easier on them.

Among the reasons: the molting, the underweight (in and of itself and because it likely means they aren't in normal good health), ex battery chickens tend to not have good feathering even if they aren't molting, you are in the UK where these temperatures are unusually cold (I think, and as opposed to staying that cold for weeks on end), you are in the UK where inside is cooler and/or less evenly heated than in much of the US (at least it was when I visited and my friends said their place was normal in that way).

I believe your vet that couldn't find anything in particular wrong but they could have something like a not very well developed digestive system. Or respiratory system. Those can happen if she had been sick as a chick (for example).

Edit to add: Maybe the feathering recovers with time and good care? But it sounds like you haven't had them long enough for that.

 

[FaithArthur123999]

I'm a big proponent of the idea that chickens adapt to cold very well.

But not every chicken in every situation.

In your case, I would take them inside when it is that cold. I would make a place in the coldest part area of inside to make the transition in and back out easier on them.

Among the reasons: the molting, the underweight (in and of itself and because it likely means they aren't in normal good health), ex battery chickens tend to not have good feathering even if they aren't molting, you are in the UK where these temperatures are unusually cold (I think, and as opposed to staying that cold for weeks on end), you are in the UK where inside is cooler and/or less evenly heated than in much of the US (at least it was when I visited and my friends said their place was normal in that way).

I believe your vet that couldn't find anything in particular wrong but they could have something like a not very well developed digestive system. Or respiratory system. Those can happen if she had been sick as a chick (for example).

Edit to add: Maybe the feathering recovers with time and good care? But it sounds like you haven't had them long enough for that.

Hello, thank you for your response!

I will definitely looks at bringing them in tonight, last night it stayed at 1 degree which I think is okay for them but do worry with -7 tonight.

I have had my hens for about 5 months but they came to me in a dire state, most without any feathers at all. They were just skin and bones, its taken them months to grow feathers but they arent a good amount of feather, not layers of other feathers I have seen on other chickens. And you are so right about our weather, these minus temperatures came in very fast and sudden, It doesnt look like they are consistent but some night look so cold. I dont think they have had a proper amount of time to adapt to these conditions.

We took a few of them to the vet that needed to go when we got them and the vet commented on how slim they were, a few monthd later I had to take 2 back to the vets and they hadnt gained much weight at all. The vet tested their poo and did and overall health check and took samples and found nothing wrong. Theyve been wormed, anti parasited and everything but they just dont gain any weight at all. Your probably right in the sense that they may not of been in best condition anyway, I lost one a couple of months ago to reproductive cancer.

Thanks again for your response, I definitely agree with everything you say and you have taught me a few things which I didnt know

 

[Jenni Hen]

I'm in the IUK too and been busy thinking about how to keep mine warm. Despite all I've read, they don't like the cold, love to sunbathe and are not that bright on how to keep warm. TBH - they're just not that bright anyway! At least in the last couple of days they've all piled in together early nd snugg;ed up. It was -6 last night when I shut them up. I like to close the door as soon as possible to keep their heat in.

I got three Shetland hens in the September but one died suddenly of an unidentifiable cause, She was skinny and cold and wouldn't stay in the nest box where it was warm. I'm beating myself up for not bringing her in sooner, but I was balancing against the stress when she'd only just arrived having left her her hatch-mates.
The others are bantams.

 

[aart]

Last night was -6 Celsius

19°F That's normal here. I wouldn't bring them inside.

 

[3KillerBs]

19°F That's normal here. I wouldn't bring them inside.

It's not even too terribly cold for me. I had 6-week chicks newly off heat in an Open Air coop in those temperatures during an unusual cold snap last month and they were fine because they were perfectly dry and well-sheltered from the wind.

As for skinny, compare them to this chart (remembering that layer breeds are naturally slimmer than dual-purpose breeds:

we even have blankets over the coop to.

Don't cover the coop up so much that you close off the ventilation.

As long as they are dry and out of the wind they should be able to stay warm. (I'll admit that I will allow molting hens to sleep in the nests if they want to).

 

[MACCanadianCoop]

Make sure they have access to extra food as well. If they have full crops at night it will help with warmth. You can try some scratch or cracked corn just before bedtime. Of course make sure the majority of their food is still the chicken feed

 

[Henfla]

I keep it above 5 degrees celcius inside the coop. Now with -10 degrees outside, I had to put up a wool blanket over the door, and isolate many of the windows inside and their pop door to keep it around 7-8 degrees celcius. They aren't as active as usual now, and they don't stay outside for more than a few hours every day. I have an insulated coop with 7 cm glass wool in the floor, walls and roof. I use tube heaters to keep it above 5 degrees. The moisture is usually around 50%.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Do what you are comfortable doing. They are your responsibility and you are looking at them. We are not. Go by what you see, not what some stranger over the internet like me tells you that you should or will see.

How long have you had these battery hens? Battery hens tend to be commercial laying hybrids which are smaller than the standard sized hens we often keep, more like a leghorn than an Orpington or Sussex. They tend to become available at the end of the laying cycle, where they have been kept on an artificial light cycle. When that light cycle changes they often molt and stop laying eggs until the molt is over. A lot of apparent body size can just be feathers. When they molt and lose a lot of their feathers they can look really skinny. That's why when you are assessing their condition you go by feel instead of sight.

Some hens are fast molters, these can finish a molt in a little over a month. Some are slow molters, these may take four or even five months to totally finish a molt. Most are somewhere in between. This is genetic and is about how fast the feathers fall out, not how fast they grow back. The fast molters may look really bare, often you cannot tell that the slow molters are molting by looking, they just eventually wind up with new feathers.

I don't know if any of this applies to your hens or not but some of it might explain some of what you are seeing. Your hens may not be in as bad a shape as you think. Their molting may be at an uncomfortable time because they had been kept on an artificial light cycle.

 

[MildlyOffensiveChicken]

19°F That's normal here. I wouldn't bring them inside.

I agree they will be fine, but if OP is worried, there are a lot of coop specific heaters they could use. Even one of those electric plug in radiator heaters.

Chickens have lived without supplemental heat in areas with -30 Celsius temps for days at a time for hundreds of years. I think shelter/coop quality is more impactful than temperature.