Like most bloggers I keep track of my site stats.  I don’t know exactly who is visiting but I can see how many people come and what they are looking at.  I share this because the most popular post to date is by far Cold and Chickens which leads me to believe that a lot of people must have cold chickens or… my readers are an odd bunch.  Though I suspect some truth in the latter it is the former that I will address today.

Probably you were looking for some information on how to keep your chickens warm this winter.  We are by no means experts around here.  This is the first winter I’ve had chickens since I was child but here is what we have learned.

• A wet chicken is a cold chicken. So do your best to provide a shelter that will stay dry even in freezing rain and snow.
• Wind – the same thing that can cool a chicken in the summer can also cool them in the winter.  Provide a space that is out of the wind and relatively free from drafts.  In a colder climate than Oklahoma’s it may be necessary to eliminate drafts completely but here where the temperature drops just below freezing (20 to 28 degrees) for only three or four days at a time this is what our coop looks like.  In the spring the blue tarp will come off and the front will remain open.
• Frozen water does not hydrate.  When the temp is above freezing our little auto waterer does a fabulous job.  (This is where I got it from… I get my egg cartons from here too.  Great service.)  I clean it once a week but other than that it is maintenance free. (The supply comes from a rain barrel that I filled with water but which will eventually be fed by a gutter.)  Below freezing the unit obviously did not function.  At that point I switched to a rotation of 2 standard metal waterers.  In the mornings I placed the frozen waterer in the garage sink to thaw and put a fresh, unfrozen waterer in the pen.  By noon the process had to be repeated and once more at night.  I considered getting a heater but for only a few days couldn’t really justify the expense.
• Put the food in or near the shelter.  I usually feed my chickens (kitchen scraps – no meat – and a mixture of hen scratch & crumbles) in a trough at the end of their pen but in freezing weather I fill the auto feeder and place it just inside the shelter by the laying boxes.  That way I don’t have to stay in the cold feeding them and they don’t have to get out in the cold to eat.  (I don’t use the auto feeder all the time because there is way too much waste.)
• Cold weather may cause your hens to go off their laying but warmer weather will return everything to normal.  (example: below freezing = 5 eggs, today, cold but not freezing = 19 eggs).

That’s about all I have to offer right now… seems like enough.  :)

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