I have a couple of questions for you. Our weather has turned brutally cold over the past few days and it will be so until the weekend. We had a cold wind the other day and with the windchill, it felt like -4 out there. The next morning, we were worried because our mallard drakes appeared to be having trouble walking and kept stumbling.
We see that the actual temp for Thursday night is supposed to be down to -1. This is very unusual weather for us here as we usually very rarely even see single digits. We put heat lamps up in our coop and have some dog houses and igloos for the ducks and chickens to get into that are lined with hay.
Will my chickens and ducks be okay when it gets down that cold or is there something else I can do? I feel like as long as ducks can keep their legs and bills warm, they will be okay, but I know that our chickens have fewer feathers. We have one chicken that likes to keep to herself, even when all the other chickens are huddled together and I worry that she will be the one that freezes before the others.
Also, what about the eggs? We have been collecting eggs over these last few days, but I'm not sure if they are safe to eat if they have been outside in temps low enough to freeze the insides.
Thanks in advance for the help.
We see that the actual temp for Thursday night is supposed to be down to -1. This is very unusual weather for us here as we usually very rarely even see single digits. We put heat lamps up in our coop and have some dog houses and igloos for the ducks and chickens to get into that are lined with hay.
Will my chickens and ducks be okay when it gets down that cold or is there something else I can do? I feel like as long as ducks can keep their legs and bills warm, they will be okay, but I know that our chickens have fewer feathers. We have one chicken that likes to keep to herself, even when all the other chickens are huddled together and I worry that she will be the one that freezes before the others.
Also, what about the eggs? We have been collecting eggs over these last few days, but I'm not sure if they are safe to eat if they have been outside in temps low enough to freeze the insides.
Thanks in advance for the help.
If it helps, it got down to -2F this morning and all the chickens are alive and well. This is with two being mid-molt. I didn't heat and made sure there was plenty of air for them. Right now, it is around 6F and it's been between 0 - 6 all day. Also, our weather normally doesn't get much below 20. Hope this helps. You could look at my recent thread for a lot of wonderful advice given to me.
