what do you all do to keep your birds from being too bored all winter?what do you feed for treats?

[Lee Nelson]

Will try the tether balled cabbage And as someone mentioned, hang it a little higher so they have to jump up to it

 

[goldenberry]

I bought a basketball net and use a carabiner to close the top. I give my girls a variety of snacks and put them in the net (you put each loop in the carabiner and it closes the top) and hang it from the top of my chicken run. The net will hold a cabbage head and my hens just love it. I've even put in different types of lettuce and anything else that's big enough to go in the net. When the net is empty, I can use the carabiner to clip the up and out of the way to the side of the run. Also, I put loose straw in part of their run (my run is a 20 ft. x 20 ft. by 6 ft. high dog kennel and has a dirt floor) and sprinkle their snacks on it (mealworms, corn, etc.) and they have to do a lot of scratching to get at it.

 

[deacons]

Great

I bought a basketball net and use a carabiner to close the top.  I give my girls a variety of snacks and put them in the net  (you put each loop in the carabiner and it closes the top) and hang it from the top of my chicken run.  The net will hold a cabbage head and my hens just love it. I've even put in different types of lettuce and anything else that's big enough to go in the net.  When the net is empty, I can use the carabiner to clip the up and out of the way to the side of the run. 

Great idea! Sort of like a haynet for horses, which keeps my mare busy all night long so she doesn't eat her hay in 5 minutes and then stand all night without any!

 

[The Yakima Kid]

People are probably pretty occupied with holiday stuff right now. I happened to see your post. I started throwing scratch out for my hens, about two three hours before sunset. Last week, it snowed. The FIRST measurable snow we have had. The girls decided they didn't like it and would hardly step out of their pen/run. My husband got a chunk of wheat straw to put in with them because mine will go nuts if they can't forage or play in the dirt. I think a sparrow was watching him, because I have been using scratch ever since it got cold but this is the first time sparrows tried to get in the pen. It is a dog run, so there is a gap around the door. One or two were brave enough to hop on through it. The next day, I left the door open, hoping the hens would get out and get some more exercise. A flock of sparrows decided to fly in. Now the hens aren't getting their scratch treat until dark, with a light on in the pen. It's still only 5:30 or 6pm; too late for the sparrows but early enough for the hens to get some grains before roosting for the night. I keep the coop warm enough to keep a bowl of water from freezing, but next year I will get a heated container. My two leghorns go in the coop at night buy my four Red Stars roost in the pen unless it is below 10 degrees F.

Most of our Dominiques prefer to consider the chicken house to be a house for the nests. One will go inside at night, the others prefer to sit outside on the ledges leading up to it, and the Black Star prefers to sit in the doorway. We've tried putting them in at night, but they quickly work their way back outside the minute the door is opened. It got into the upper 20s at our Califonia place - a rare occurrence - and they still wanted to be outside. I can understand this with the Dominiques, they have lots of nice fluffy warm down.

 

[goldenberry]

My husband and I made heaters for our one gallon water dispensers and for our three gallon water dispenser. It was very inexpensive and works very well. We took metal cookie tins (the kind you put cookies in), bought a lamp fixture and drilled a hole in the side of the tin, installed the fixture, and used a 40 watt bulb. We bought the fixture at Lowe's. You set the dispensers on top of the cookie tins and there is just enough warmth to keep the water from freezing. We run an outdoor extension cord to the chicken run. We have had temperatures down in the single digits for the past week and the water dispensers have not frozen. You can go to a web site, www.the-chicken-chick.com and click on the DIY link and it gives you directions on how to make the water heaters. I

 

[MaPa26]

My husband and I made heaters for our one gallon water dispensers and for our three gallon water dispenser. It was very inexpensive and works very well. We took metal cookie tins (the kind you put cookies in), bought a lamp fixture and drilled a hole in the side of the tin, installed the fixture, and used a 40 watt bulb. We bought the fixture at Lowe's. You set the dispensers on top of the cookie tins and there is just enough warmth to keep the water from freezing. We run an outdoor extension cord to the chicken run. We have had temperatures down in the single digits for the past week and the water dispensers have not frozen. You can go to a web site, www.the-chicken-chick.com and click on the DIY link and it gives you directions on how to make the water heaters. I

Thank you for that tip. I will check out the website. I saw another great idea from checking out another BYC member's coop (The Wichita Coop). He used bricks around a light bulb and set a terra cotta flower pot drainage dish over it, then sat his waterer on the dish. My husband and I are just so leery of any heat source, like that, that is on the floor level and close to the pine shavings. I am going to get a heated dog dish or one of the galvanized heaters (to sit a metal waterer on) next winter. For now, we just refill the bowls, as needed. Our coop has a heat lamp over the roost and the nest area. The nest area is the side of the coop next to our biggest access door and that is where we keep a water and food source. Since they now seem to prefer roosting outside, we are going to take out the bulb over the roost in the coops. Hopefully, the one lamp on the nest side will be enough to keep that side warm enough to keep the water thawed. Our girls are the same, in that they only go in the coop to lay their eggs. They can get a drink and a bite to eat after they lay (they finish up whatever we gave them for dinner, in the pen, before we get out there in the morning). Recently, the two leghorns have started roosting out in the pen when the nighttime lows stay above twenty degrees. I think they are just jealous. Whatever the Stars do, they want to do--and take over. Luckily, the roost in the pen is long enough to hold all six hens!

We followed the "guideline suggestions" to have at least one nest for every four hens. We have six hens and two nests, but five of them seem to be on the same schedule. There is ALWAYS a hen "waiting" impatiently for her turn! We might add a couple more nests this Spring!

 

[Bibbianna]

I hang brocoli upside down and they love it!

 

[coop-er]

New favorite snack-pomegranate seeds!

 

[green-line]

I live in Iowa and lately the temps have been single digits with up to -30 wind chills. I have an insulated cool that I build and build for other people! check out Custom Coops on Facebook! I pretty much let my birds stay in the run. I have 13 birds in a 12'x12' run. Most of the time I give them treats like older lettuce of cleverly heads but sometimes I give them worms from our indoor composter. To keep body warmth up I give them scratch grains with a little grit... This seems to keep them occupied for hours in the snow. Or in your case dirt/snow! I hope this helps!

 

[BarnChickyOO]

:/This is our first winter with our chickee doos! We live in oregon the weather can go from mild and raining to ice storms and severe winds. My girls have a coop with a heat lamp pointed one direction so they can either be under the heat or in the cooler parts of the coop.it hovers around 50 ish most nights. They have fresh water and layer pellets available all the time we feed them goodies like chopped spinach and live meal worms or night crawlers. Sometime they get cooked warm oat meal plain along w scratch and dried meal worms.

The weather is too cold for me to watch them in our yard.while its fenced we have had terrible problems with one neoghbors two cats trying to kill neighbors chickens and mine.I never leave my flock unatended and sit nearby with a garden hose ready to show the cats its not ok to be chasing my girls. How ever they do have a pretty large utterly safe run area and the bug "pickin's" are very slim this time of year in the yard. I think they may be spending more time in their run as I can't be catching colds trying to keep an eye on them this time of yr.

So what do you all do too keep your chickens from being too bored and avoid plucking or bullying in the winter ? I know what its like being cooped up no fun...but winter brings that for people too!

Looking for tips on things to keep them a little busy... thanks!

I always just smash the old pumpkins leftover from the fall in their coop, since those big orange things last about half of forever! The girls love them, and have started eating the ones that are for decoration right after we put them out! xD