NY chicken lover!!!!

[jmdarrow]

Yup....I am worried. They just said wind chills could be as low as -50 this weekend. seems drastic to me, especially for my lil Silkies. Although they do huddle together at night, my 4 batchelors are in a coop by themselves and it seems rather large to me now. I have extra pine shavings that i will put in their coop but my concern is that my newest boy roosts all by himself. I dont want to find him sick or worse due to wind chills. Is there anything else I could do for my lil ones? I do not have electricity for my coops. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks-Jackie

 

[Beer can]

Would anyone object to this ? notice the cement on the chickens feet too !

Object! I'd have a heart attack! Lol!

 

[akaruby]

I decided to bring in the five week old chicks this morning before I go to bed(I work the night shift as an RN) we have a wind chill advisory saying it could get 20 to 40 below Saturday into Sunday. Yikes!

I have a total of 3 small vents at the top of my coop and 2 windows. Windows have been shut. Is it necessary to keep all small vents open in really cold temps? My coop is always nice and dry. There's only 5 chickens and my two silkies don't roost.

 

[jmdarrow]

OMG that's funny! I would only object to catching that chicken to clean their feet!

 

[Chicken girl 15]

...

   Do you keep a scrap pile from your left over food for them?  That might buffer the cost a bit. My daughter is a vegan, so we always have about a plate of carrot peels, grapes, seeds, berries, stems etc...I also throw them the beyond eating apples and pears etc...They love that stuff.
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I usually try to keep veggie peelings for them. I boil them, put them in the blender, mix it with a little boiled meat scraps, then mix some feed in there to get it to a dryer consistency, then feed them. I had tried feeding them raw peelings before, but they made one or two pecks to try them out, then ignored them. Even the pumpkin guts and seeds. But when I boil and blend, they eat the mixture. They wouldn't eat banana skins, would they? Or melon skins and rinds?

yes to melon rinds and yes to banana skins. Just toss it in the run. Whatever they don't eat will compost to dirt anyhow.

 

[Lapeerian]

Im going to get some cracked corn to give as a treat through this artic blast, helps to keep them warm via metabolism. Also going to get more straw to toss under the coop where they huddle during the cold days. Coop is parked inside the horse barn, so *most* of the wind is blocked except for what comes in the open eaves.

 

[Aria]

Yup....I am worried. They just said wind chills could be as low as -50 this weekend. seems drastic to me, especially for my lil Silkies. Although they do huddle together at night, my 4 batchelors are in a coop by themselves and it seems rather large to me now. I have extra pine shavings that i will put in their coop but my concern is that my newest boy roosts all by himself. I dont want to find him sick or worse due to wind chills. Is there anything else I could do for my lil ones? I do not have electricity for my coops. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks-Jackie

We will be closing our run door and our Silkies will be in the Coop.
No drafts...well protected.

I would NOT leave any Silkie ALONE. And little ones....they need to
be protected. Do you have a basement in your home? Just for the
weekend would be good. Chickens survive the cold if they are
exposed to it from time to time...but low minus degrees forecast
are NOT good for any animal or person. Regards, Aria

 

[tao chick]

This is my first arctic blast with chickens. They've been cooped up today and will stay cooped up until Sunday, depending on how cold it gets tomorrow. The coop is in a stone-foundation-barn, 12'x16', for 14 birds and they youngest birds are 3 months old. There are four feeding stations in the main part, plenty of roosts and nest boxes, a water bucket and a nipple water system. Ventilation is the top inch or two of 2 windows and some sheltered ventilation at the door (which opens into a garage). There's free choice calcium and I brought them oatmeal today. I'll do the same tomorrow and Sunday. There's a variety of grit options and a dust bath. Sunday morning I plan on opening everything up and even though it will be cold they'll need a break from the coop. I'll refresh shavings then. I'm sure I'm overthinking.

 

[Chicken girl 15]

Hi Everyone! My apologies for being away so long. I'm sorry to hear about the cancer fights happening. We had some family members one after the other from this past July and Just this month we've been waiting to hear about my other Aunt. Her labs just came back good so I'm taking a breath of relief here. I think it's taken a toll on my own heart personally. It's been a tough few months. Then my own Dr. left his practice to move to St. Joes to be a hospitalist so I've been waiting patiently for an appointment with our new Dr. I have type II diabetes which has been under control until all the stress over the past few months. The good news is my teeth are nice and healthy though! Hahaha Anyhoo, I wanted to pop in as I have been private messaging a couple of you during my hiatus. I was curious to see what everyone is going to do with their hens on Saturday. We're in Oswego Co. I see where some of us will be getting negative weather -10 for us, but the windchills will be more like -25. We don't have electricity out in the coop. I've been debating on whether to bring them in as I've seen a few of you mention, but I have no idea what I would do or how I would keep them contained in the basement. We have all pine shavings. A couple windows will be opened a tad, they have their 20 gallon rubbermaid bins we use for the nests but I'm not at all sure they'd all huddle in there would they? The run has hay along all the windy sides so they will keep drafts out. I'm just worried about the coop at this point. There is only 4 of them and the coop is a pretty big 8ft x 10ft Rubbermaid shed. They've been fine so far but this weekend will be the first pretty cold weather since we've gotten them this fall. I think I remember most of you saying they should be fine as they are Pullets but have lots of feathers. No chicks here at all. I wanted to share a bit of what's been going on over here on our end. Alley the cat has a coronation ceremony. The ladies refused for a few weeks to even walk out in the snow. "You must be off your rocker!!! I heard them clucking" Meanwhile the kid was squishing them all (two in particular) Meet Mrs. Pattmore in her black garb. Poor Countess Of Grantham doesn't like petty emotions but she lets the kid squeeze her all the same just because she loves her. She also has taken to watching over the smaller girls of the lower pecking order. Will ya look at that?! I was wondering if we'd get any eggs at all. I assumed they'd start laying around the end of December when in fact they started laying around the end of January. Aren't they beautiful eggs?! We don't eat many. My husband is vegan and myself and our daughter eat only a small amount of eggs and fish once in a while. We love the chickens for gardening purposes and controlling the smaller pest population. Below are the eggs we gave to one of our neighbors that has plowed our driveway several times. We gave three of our closest neighbors eggs for being kind throughout the year. While it won't be a regular thing, we wanted to give something to show them our appreciation. This past week, someone laid an egg twice the size. We had one double yolk like the first on the left, but this one was truly an amazingly HUGE egg poor sweet girl. Thank you Gramma for all your great input! The girls now are going out of the coop, I started using a bit more scratch ON THE GROUND (we were adding it to the dishes. OOPSIE!) and they are now laying. You calmed my fears and helped me through some questions in a jiffy. I have been lurking a bit but not on as much as I'd like. I have missed the silliness and fun of this group. Your all amazing! Finally, I think I'm going to get 4 more pullets in the spring. I was just wondering if anyone has Cuckoo Marans that lay the speckled eggs? I know they are a rare breed originating from France (look at me talk as if I have been doing this for a while. ) . My friend has one and I believe she's from the Carolina's. I'm not sure they are winter hardy. I think someone in this group gets speckled eggs though. We seem to have two of each color so I can keep them all straight. Hahaha Also, I'm trying to figure out where to quarantine the four new ones when we get them. All the ladies have access to free-ranging in the back yard for a few hours until my husband leaves and then I'll let them out again until 4 when they'll go back in, have a snack and roost for the night. A pretty nice schedule we have going here. I can probably get a small coop with a run and put it in the front portion of our yard on the opposite side of the fece but it is NOT fully fenced in and they will be seen by everyone that walks their dog, as well as the dogs that end up loose often and all the stray cats that get dropped off. While I"m assuming the coop and run for quarantine would be okay for a short time, I'd like to be sure they won't be susceptible to coyotes running loose and other predators and wonder how safe they'd be in a ready made 4-6 chicken coop? We don't live in a city but we're on the outskirts of a small town in a cup de sac with the woods facing behind our house. We get all kinds of critters and people like to walk the cut de sac so I'm also leary of prying eyes on our chickens but nobody has taken anything from our yard so far. We have good people here it seems. Anyone have reasonably priced 4-6 chicken coops that can either come ready made or that we could put together that will be weather resistant? If you all read through this, God bless ya! I haven't been in here in a while and I am obviously long-winded. I hope I've made ya smile or laugh today. Happy Friday everyone!

happy Friday to you as well. Your long winded stories don't bother me a bit. I enjoy this page even on the not so happy days.

 

[Gramma Chick]

I have a total of 3 small vents at the top of my coop and 2 windows. Windows have been shut. Is it necessary to keep all small vents open in really cold temps? My coop is always nice and dry. There's only 5 chickens and my two silkies don't roost.

I will address the open windows -
I keep a Thermometer in the coop so I can check temperatures
Yesterday when I closed the door up at night it was 20 degrees...it was open all day
This morning when I opened it it was 35 degrees in there .
My coop is set up to vent all the time ..these small slats are not covered .
I covered them last year..but this year I didnt ...I might shove some plastic in there tonight ..so there is more of a barrier ...


If you let the coop air out during the day ..it should be okay to close the windows / close it all up at night ..when it is so cold
Just Make SURE the moisture vents during the day .
It is moisture of their breath that causes FROSTBITE..
Try closing it one night ..to see how they do ..