Silkies and winter...

[mrsengeseth]

How do you house the silkies in the winter? Is their fluff as protective for them as regularly feathered chickens? Any special things I should know?

 

[highmountainchick]

hey, I am following your thread. I would like to know this question too. I have baby silkies coming in a couple of weeks. good luck!

 

[M@M@2four]

I'm planning on laying a good layer of straw on their floor as I've heard this is great for heat...each piece of straw traps heat inside of it. My silkies are pretty hardy during the cold weather as long as their closed up and have buddies to snuggle with. It's the summer months that can do a silkie in---they get over-heated very quickly!

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

My Silkies will be in a wooden dog house that was made into a small 2 section breeder pen. I will be grouping them together so they can snuggle and keep eachother warm. Then im going to draping a piece of that thick plastic in front of the door, so its like a cat door, and that will hold heat in. They will be getting lots of straw in the coop, and I will be stacking hay bales around the coop, so it helps to block the wind.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

i am looking for suggestions also. We moved up to Northern California from Southern California in April. Barely had a winter in Los Angeles. My silkies slept in a chick-n-barn or converted rabbit hutch for the times we lived down there. For our mini-winter, i would put tarps over most openings that were just hardware cloth, leaving some uncovered for ventilation. i would also sometimes wrap a big blanket around the coops (all were inside covered kennel runs and up against our garage).

But it will get much colder here in the winter. i may need a better long term plan.

 

[silkiechicken]

I treat my silkies just like the rest of the birds. They sleep in a tractor and often sleep on the "outside" roosts till it gets into the 30's at night and go inside. The standards usually go inside in the low 20's. I'm north of Seattle WA, so it doesn't get that cold or that hot. Snows maybe a week or two a year, and freezing weather for may be a month.

 

[Joy1]

Their feathers are not waterproof so somewhere to shelter is required.

 

[sushicat2000]

I've heard that silkies have no problem with the cold. It's just that if they get wet and theres a cold draft, they could freeze. Some people say to keep them in all winter. I'm having the same problem as you, and I feel like she would hate staying in, so I'm just gonna see if she gets wet, and if she does, I might have to give her her own little warm dry coop.