Official BYC Poll: What's your biggest challenge with keeping chickens during the fall season?

[BYC Project Manager]

As the leaves change and the temperatures start to drop, fall brings a new set of challenges for chicken keepers. From keeping the coop cozy to managing molting and pests, this season requires some extra attention to ensure your flock stays happy and healthy.

We want to hear from you! What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to raising chickens in the fall? Cast your vote, join the conversation, and see how your experience compares with others in the community!

Further Reading:

• Caring For Chickens in the Fall
• Molting: All You Need To Know
• Important High-Protein Foods for Chickens During Molting
• Coop Health: Designing & Maintaining A Healthy Coop

(Check out more exciting Official BYC Polls HERE!)

 

[Sally PB]

My "other" is spending time in the coop/run with them as the hours of daylight wane and the temperature drops.

With the long days of summer, I can sit with the chickens before or after dinner, since the sun doesn't set until 8-9 pm. When it's dark at 6, I have to get me list of chores done before dinner, leaving me less time to sit and read in the run with a chicken on my lap.

When it gets too cold to sit outside, it's even harder to spend time with them, but I try to find a way to visit. I take a feed sack and sit in the coop where it's a bit warmer.

 

[WaterfowlsPoultry]

Mostly keeping the ground predators away, I am only really ready for air predators and I've prepared and defended from them for so long that I completely forgot about ground predators, So I might add some adjustments to the coop.

Because it gets so cold, Sometimes the water I put in the coop just freezes and my chickens just peck at it.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

It's so hot and dry right now, it's hard to imagine/ remember the challenges of fall ... but I checked "managing wet and muddy conditions" because I'm pretty sure cold, wet days will come! Some areas become a quagmire. I had some of those areas filled in pre-emptively this summer with wood chips from the electric company. I hope it helps.

Almost all the other items on the list can also be of concern, but most of them we've either already done all we can to prepare for (predators, for example), or there's not much we can do about them anyway (egg production). As the days begin to get ridiculously short in the dead of winter, we will begin to add light to extend their days. It used to worry me that it might not be good for them but then I realized that chickens in certain parts of the world do not get a six-month break because of where they are located on the planet, and it seems to do them no harm. So I do not think I am cruel to encourage my hens to start laying again after a three-month break.

 

[Themellowyellows]

Curious to know when chickens start molting, my chickens are comming up on there 2nd fall does that mean there going to start molting?

 

[The Moonshiner]

Accepting that the hatching season is ending and it's a long cold 6 months until it starts again.

 

[WaterfowlsPoultry]

Accepting that the hatching season is ending and it's a long cold 6 months until it starts again.

Well.. It was fun while it lasted

 

[Mrs. K]

Fall is when I adjust my flock. I don’t like it, but if you hatch you need to decide who stays and who is invited to dinner. You can cheat in the summer with the long days and weather, but come fall your flock needs to fit your coop with extra space.

 

[Pampered chicken girl]

Nothing really, my production stats up pretty good (unless they are actively molting). They enjoy the cooler weather abd so do I