Winter is Coming! Checklists, tips, advice for a newbie

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Bogtown Chick said:
The deer got my pumpkins before I got them down to a safer spot in the run. My chooks are lukewarm about pumpkins though...idk...
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Overall diet makeup may influence intake of something like pumpkin. My birds also highly variable in their interest in pumpkin resulting in suspicion birds get more interest in pumpkin when the overall diet is protein rich. Free-range birds getting lots of insects or when a grower ration is placed in the feeding stations seem to go after pumpkin more.
 
I think you're right. In the fall mine are going after grass seeds as the frogs bugs disappear. Spring and summer is all about insect/animal protein and grass/clover. They also at this point in time of winter would probably be all over that pumpkin if I'd kept one and could get it thawed enough. The sugars change in the pumpkin after it's froze don't they? So maybe sweeter and softer for eating? Want to say I read something about the sugars... Anyways... We got a cold night coming tomorrow -30 wind chills predicted and we have a tendency in our spot to go colder than the forecast.
 
@Shabana: We're all good and have a routine down for days like that now. The birds are thankfully acclimated and I do take safe heating measures at those colder temps. I believe in them being hardy for our cold winters but I don't believe in them having to deal with cruel temps if I can take the edge off for them.

-8 is nothing to snub a nose at! That is still cold!

My approach is not letting the birds out of the coop when it's under 0 F. It's just too cold on their feet and they prefer to roost and keep their toes warm in that kind of weather anyways. I shelter them in those temps. Once it's 0 F or above then I let them out as they will. It's just been determined with my flock that that is our threshold for keeping them safe. Thankfully those days are far and few between this winter and the birds have had free access to the run almost every day this winter.
 
Shabana said:
Goodness ...-30 !
I can't imagine how difficult that must make things. I've seldom seen it below -8 here in the UK and we think we're hard done by at that !
Hope you your family and your chickens are ok x
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Just remember that those of us in the States are using Fahrenheit instead of Celsius. your -8 C in the UK is only 17.6 F. Right now that would be balmy to me. According to the weather on my phone app here, its -8 F here, which works out to be about -22 C. It a good kick to the babymaker to go step outside here. And I'm in bit of a banana belt here in Southeast Michigan vs Northern Minnesota.
 
aart said:
Ditto...and a lot of folks cite the windchill temps as the air temps...which really doesn't apply to a well situated coop.
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Either way, its still CLUCKING COLD out there.
sickbyc.gif
 

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