How do you care for laying hens in extremely cold weather?

[LadyCedar]

I live in Central Ontario, and have 20 lovely Rhode Island Red Hens, just starting to lay eggs. The coops are renovated Ice-fishing huts, and are well insulated.
We had an extremely harsh winter last year, and my partner brought up the issue of "when is it too cold to let the girls out in their yard? How deep snow can they handle? Working with horses, we had a rule of thumb, that they only go out for 15 minutes when the daytime temp was -15C, any lower and they stayed in....
But what is the rule of thumb for hens?
Any advice would be appreciated!

 

[Michael OShay]

As far as I know there is no rule of thumb for hens. As long as the interior of your coop is dry and draft free, your chickens will be fine as feathers are wonderful insulators. Rhode Island Reds are very cold hardy chickens. In my experience they will govern themselves as to whether they should go outside into the cold and snow or not. Just make sure you close them up in the coop at night.

 

[DairyChickenGal]

Chickens can handle about 2 feet of snow before they sink down in the snow. As long as your coop is warm for them they should be ok. Their feathers are like electric blankets so you can keep them out.

 

[iwiw60]

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/search?q=cold+weather


A wealth of information..hope this helps you out!

 

[LadyCedar]

Dear Obsessed. TYVM, am checking it out right away!

 

[Blammmo]

In northern MN, I leave the pop door open on my coop on all winter days that it is above -10 to -20F, when we get the cold snaps that drop to -10F and lower I will usually close the coop up and within a few days the temp comes back up and I can open it up again, they like when I keep a section shoveled open by our goose feeder so they can scratch around in the ice for grain spilled from the geese. They also prefer to spend the day in our 3 sided goose shelter, then head back to the coop in the evenings, it's nice to be able to let them out to get exercise even in the coldest months of the year.

 

[iwiw60]

Here's another great page with lots of info on the subject:

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/search?q=frostbite