JHH3
Songster
I have an Australorp hen that suffered a neck injury about 3 weeks ago, she's fully healed now but has been separated from the flock for the entire 3 weeks.
She's staying in the mudroom now where the average temperature is 40F, though I can leave a window open at night and get it down to freezing 32 degrees.
I want to reintegrate her into the flock but I'm concerned with the time it'll take for it to happen and the current daily temperature range. The high temps for the day are averaging in the 20's and the lows overnight are in the single digits, it doesn't get up into the 20's until mid-day.
There's snow on the ground so half of the flock stays inside the coop at any given time and they all usually stay in the coop if it's 17 degrees or under outside.
If it were warm, I'd just put her in a wire cage in the coop for a couple days and then let her out but I don't really want to do that with it being this cold. The coop temperature reads in the teens most of the time at night when it's really cold outside, but that's up higher in the coop and I don't know how much colder it would be on the floor where the cage would have to be. I don't know what kind of drafts there are at floor level, if any.
There's also the consideration of the space the cage takes up and the fact that a good portion of the flock is already spending a lot of time in the coop due to the cold and I'm feeling like using a cage over a couple days isn't going to work very well. I think it's going to stress them out too much. I do have a smaller, more sealed up animal crate that she's sleeping in now that I could use, but I question how effective that would be when they wouldn't be able to interact with her much while she's in there.
I'm thinking about picking a warmer day this week, letting her sit in a wire cage in the chicken yard for half the day while the rest investigate her then giving her the option of going out while I sit out there watching her to make sure she's not picked on too much. See if she can hold her own well enough to spend the night and rejoin the flock. Or is that too much to hope for?
Any other ideas for reintegrating a former flock member into a flock when it's cold and snowy? Or should I just wait?
I'd rather not have a chicken in the mudroom until spring, but I'd rather have a live healthy one in the mudroom than a dead or re-injured one.
She's staying in the mudroom now where the average temperature is 40F, though I can leave a window open at night and get it down to freezing 32 degrees.
I want to reintegrate her into the flock but I'm concerned with the time it'll take for it to happen and the current daily temperature range. The high temps for the day are averaging in the 20's and the lows overnight are in the single digits, it doesn't get up into the 20's until mid-day.
There's snow on the ground so half of the flock stays inside the coop at any given time and they all usually stay in the coop if it's 17 degrees or under outside.
If it were warm, I'd just put her in a wire cage in the coop for a couple days and then let her out but I don't really want to do that with it being this cold. The coop temperature reads in the teens most of the time at night when it's really cold outside, but that's up higher in the coop and I don't know how much colder it would be on the floor where the cage would have to be. I don't know what kind of drafts there are at floor level, if any.
There's also the consideration of the space the cage takes up and the fact that a good portion of the flock is already spending a lot of time in the coop due to the cold and I'm feeling like using a cage over a couple days isn't going to work very well. I think it's going to stress them out too much. I do have a smaller, more sealed up animal crate that she's sleeping in now that I could use, but I question how effective that would be when they wouldn't be able to interact with her much while she's in there.
I'm thinking about picking a warmer day this week, letting her sit in a wire cage in the chicken yard for half the day while the rest investigate her then giving her the option of going out while I sit out there watching her to make sure she's not picked on too much. See if she can hold her own well enough to spend the night and rejoin the flock. Or is that too much to hope for?
Any other ideas for reintegrating a former flock member into a flock when it's cold and snowy? Or should I just wait?
I'd rather not have a chicken in the mudroom until spring, but I'd rather have a live healthy one in the mudroom than a dead or re-injured one.