Preparing Your Flock & Coop for WINTER

[campchickens]

I have learned so much about winterizing chickens from this thread. Thanks all!

My question on this miserably cold, rainy day: how much ventilation is necessary? Daytime temps today will be a little bit above freezing, and everyone seems to be running around and doing fine after some minor frostbite in last week's freezing temps, but it's due to pour all day and go below freezing again tonight and I am afraid of chicken ice cubes. We are very low tech here, but I want to cover the top of the coop in plastic, and I'm worried about ventilation. The roosting and nesting areas are enclosed, but the rest of the coop and run is all chicken wire, even the roof. They survived last winter in this structure under someone else's watch, but I'd like them to do a little better than just surviving...

 

[chicken04]

I would NOT recommend sand either,there are so many fleas and mites living in sand. If you do youse sand and you didn't know tons of mites and fleas lived in sand then you should change out there bedding VERY SOON!!!!!!You should also buy poultry protector and spray all around your birds body it should get rid of fleas and mites and other pesty bugs I used it on one of my Australorps that had fleas or mites and it's worked great so now she is flea FREE!!!!

 

[Lori Marie]

We have used sand for awhile and it works great. Never had an issue with any bugs. I dust occasionally with food grade DE. I clean the coop out daily and it has stayed very clean all through the winter. We plan to rake it all out and replace it with fresh sand now that winter is over.
Of course you need to use the correct sand, not play sand.

 

[Goronson Chicks]

I just put play sand down on the ground right outside our chickens run, mixed with pea gravel because the ground has turned to mud in the 30 degree weather we've had recently in Maine. Why is it bad to use play sand? Now I'm worried that I've done something terrible.

We didn't put it inside the coop, just outside on the ground. Thank you for any advice!
Maureen

 

[Lori Marie]

Well from what I read you need to use sand that is not real fine, like play sand, beach sand. We got ours at Lowes. It's builders sand. All sand has silica in it but this has the least amount. The fine sand can cause respiratory issues. The sand to use is more coarse and and it's washed sand.
I believe it's much cleaner, never any odors from our coop. It was great through the freezing winter because it doesn't get wet the moisture is drawn away.I am just so happy with how much cleaner it all stays with sand.

 

[Goronson Chicks]

We got ours at Lowes, too. But not knowing any better, I got the play sand. We covered it with some pea gravel, which is much larger/coarser. I will put more of the pea gravel down over it. Hopefully that will help fix what I did. We still use shavings in the coop and change it once or twice weekly.
Thank you for responding.
Maureen

 

[iwiw60]

We got ours at Lowes, too. But not knowing any better, I got the play sand. We covered it with some pea gravel, which is much larger/coarser. I will put more of the pea gravel down over it. Hopefully that will help fix what I did. We still use shavings in the coop and change it once or twice weekly.
Thank you for responding.
Maureen

You might take one of those mini-rototillers to work it all in together.

 

[Goronson Chicks]

Will that help minimize dust? This morning when I went out to let them out to feed, I could taste a little dust in my mouth. Has to be from that play sand - it was never like that before. Gosh, one has to triple think before they do anything or you might get it wrong.

Thanks for the advice, folks!
Maureen
Maine

 

[Lori Marie]

Yeah I think it will be ok. Maybe you can mix in the coarse sand with it and even wet it a little bit to keep the dust down while mixing it. I think it's good to replace it after awhile. So when you do replace it just get the other type and it will be fine.I also have the pine shavings in their coop and I got a very large kitty litter scoop and attached a long stick to it so I use that to scoop all the poop from the sand and also it works in the shavings to collect the poop. I just shake it from side to side and the shavings fall through. It's just so quick and easy to clean it each day. Then I replace the shavings once a week or so.Good luck with your chickens. How many do you have? Is this your first time with chickens? I was so worried about them this winter but they did just fine. I ordered a big heated water bowl from Walmart and this was a good choice.Just got an outdoor extention cord and it was fine. we didn't use any plastic but our coop is pretty protected from the wind and snow. We only have 2 chickens and one started laying before winter really hit and she layed all through winter, then the other one started laying and now they each lay an egg a day. So good luck with yours, enjoy them. Lori

 

[Goronson Chicks]

Hi Lori,
We have 18 birds. Three of them are roos - 2 accidental ones that were sold as hens and ended up being roos. For hens we have 3 Polish (white crested black named Dina Ross) a buff named Susie Q and a gold laced Polish named Audrie Fandango. The we have 2 Guinea hens, 4 Gold Laced Wyandottes, 2 Jersey Giants, 1 Red Comet, 2 French Black Copper Marans and 1 Easter Egger. They have laid all winter - of 15 hens we were getting 10 to 11 eggs each day - but just 8 eggs when our light timer got messed up. We fixed that and it slowly increased back up to 10-11/day again. The 2 Guinea hens were not laying for a portion of the winter, but have just started again.

Yes, this is our first time with chickens/poultry. We feed them the Poulin grain recommended by our FBCM breeder and also 2 cups of organic cracked corn as scratch each day and also tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, onions and melon rind every day. Our coop is insulated and we put a cozy legs heater inside. The light and heater seemed to increase the egg production at the start of the really cold weather. We also bought a heated water fountain - they are great aren't they?

They have a 20 X 40 ft enclosed run. We tried to do everything right - I just blew it on the sand part.
Thank you,
Maureen