Looking for Winter Advice- What do you wish you had known

[cajunlizz]

Quote:
YES , and I have been told by many in this forum , using HAY , if and when it gets wet during rainy periods , ETC. you end up with one STINKY , YUCKY MESS .

 

[ozark hen]

Hay in the run is about 6 to 8 inches thick, so no messy problem here.

 

[gwynhwyfar]

Quote:
Yeah, I'm not worried about messy/muddy, either -- I do like the idea of the bale of hay under the flat roof against the house, especially since it's sheltered already. And I got straw for inside the coop.

Dad had told me about the hanging cabbage. He said that it would help keep them from picking at each other because they could (and would) pick on that. He also said that a suet cage was a good thing to use to stuff things into because it would occupy them to dig it out. (Sounds like toys to me ...)

I guess if the girls don't come out when I open the door, I know it's too cold for them.

 

[ozark hen]

Now you got it!

tell me, however do you get that head of cabbage strung through?

 

[BowChickaBowMow]

Yeah, I was tryin' to figure out that whole stringin' and hangin' the cabbage too! Someone please fill us in!

 

[gwynhwyfar]

Quote:
My plan is to use a spike to make a hole and then take a metal clotheshanger, wrap it through the hole like the cabbage was a giant bead and suspend that under one of the windows on a hook. I'm not sure how it's going to work, but that seems least likely to involve things that might hurt the chickens. I'd love to do a hanging rope from the center of the coop like a huge pinata, but I don't want them to hang themselves on the rope.

 

[Mrs MIA]

I just took an icepick and punched a hole through the stem and used thin strapping string to hang it from the wire above the pen. I put it just out of reach, so they have to actually jump a few inches to get it, but with about 20 hens it was gone in the matter of hours.

They really like it.

 

[Alaskan]

Quote:
So, it snowed for the first time here...it was actually warmer than it had been the last two days (and all the poultry went out then).

But they ALL (ducks and chickens) freaked about their first snow. None of them would go out. Every so often one of the chickens would poke it's head out, see that it was snow, and go back inside.

finally, when I got back from Church and saw that NO poultry had been out yet (about 1 pm), I decided I had to do something.

Their food and water was outside, nothing to eat or drink in the coop.

Anyway, we herded them all out of the coop, and tossed out the ones that wouldn't let us herd them out. Then we closed up the coop so noone could get back in.

I did brush the snow off the ramp, and all of the chickens tried to stay on that ramp and not fall off in the evil snow! LOL

I even put a plate of treats about 1.5 feet from the ramp, but it didn't tempt them. After about 10 minutes some of them started to get brave enough to come out onto the snow to get food and water.

I couldn't believe it! Even though they must have been starving, that snow scared them to death!

Once the ducks got on it and realized they wouldn't die, they were fine (except that I don't think they ate enough, it looked like they gorged on snow and water).

But the chickens kept trying their hardest to only walk where there wasn't any snow.

I am VERY glad that I have built a lean-to onto one side to give them a snow free area to put the food and water. (it isn't completely done, so they don't have access to it yet).

 

[Mrs MIA]

I don't get it... all my birds have been outside in the snow all day... the veterans AND the newbies...

 

[ozark hen]

I am sure the veterans showed the "kids" that there was nothing to be afraid of. Mine freaked out last year when they first saw the snow. Guineas think it something very evil. ha ha