Winter is Coming
Winter can be scary for chickens, but with a little care it doesn’t have to be.
Let’s talk a bit about What We Do in the Ozarks to Winterize our Feathered Friends.
In the midwest we have variable weather and that’s always harder on animals! Summer-IndianSummer-Winter-HATrickedYou-Fall-Wint-Autum-Winter-WINTER-Spring-TrickedYouAgain-Winter-SUMMER
Sigh..
The never ending cycle.. There’s one consistency: MUD. It’s everywhere. Unless there’s a drought. But mostly the winter seems to be damp and cold and mud.
Chickens fortunately can handle Cold better than most people think, but it depends on the breed more than I would have thought (I’ll get into that more in a bit).
Ventilation and the Tropical Chicken Myth
Surprisingly birds can survive (-80*F).. But that is the Snowy Owl and small birds like the Arctic Redpoll have been recorded in -65*F. They seem small and frail, but at the end of the day birds are mostly constructed the same.
Objections I’ve heard:
“But the Chicken is a TROPICAL Bird”
“MODERN CHICKENs are like modern dogs, barely to stay alive out of doors”…
“But they’re Silkies”
Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s and your chicken is the closest thing to a Dinosaur, this side of the Gila Monster. Except for that last one, I’m sorry Silkies are the Cute Toddlers of the Chicken World: So nice to hold, but prone to self-inflicted fatality for no good reason.
The truth is, Most Chickens can survive -20*F temperatures.
Now some caveats:
- Bedding makes a difference
- Precipitation can be deadly and humidity makes a difference
- Wind or draft makes a difference
- Breed makes a difference
Here’s what we can do:
Deep Bedding
Deep bedding works a lot better than you’d think. It helps three of the deadly four issues. It gives your fluffy chickies something to get down into and keep their core warmth up, blocks the wind, helps keep them away from moisture if the ground is wet. Also, if they need to be enclosed for a longer period of time the deep bedding helps dry out the droppings, which in-turn keeps down the ammonia.
AMMONIA!
Ammonia in coops comes from the breakdown of nitrogen in chicken droppings and can cause damage to a chicken’s respiratory system.
Us mammals produce Ammonia, but our livers convert it to Urea, a relatively simple molecule -but It’s highly water soluble, so we drink water and you get pee -you’re welcome. Birds on the other hand, also produce Ammonia constantly, but if they produced Urea, all the eggs would fill with toxic ammonia and die.. Instead, they excrete Uric Acid (the white paste in their droppings). It’s dry and ends up a small deposit inside the hatched egg. However, when bacteria get activated and get happy with some moisture and heat they break down the uric acid and release ammonia gas.
TL;DR If chicken poop stays cool and dry Ammonia stays in it, if it gets warm and wet Evil Ammonia is released..
That brings us to the next point.
Ventilation vs Draft
Air’s Air right? Naturally not.
Ventilation good, draft bad. The difference is positioning. Ventilation, isn’t about drying the chickens, it’s about drying the bedding. A draft is falling on the chickens, and a draft on a cold wet chicken is a recipe for a sick or dead one. When enclosing your coop, don’t wrap it in plastic wrap, think about where the air will move -what direction does the prevailing wind go? Etc. Depending on the coop and the surroundings, maybe it makes sense to wrap the top and leave a bit open below perch level and a bit of crack at the other side at the top.
TL;DR Dry the bedding, not the chickens. Ideally a bit of movement all the way through it best, to move that moisture out.
Cold-hardy Breeds
This is an interesting one to me and there are likely others more knowledgeable about the subject. Here in the Ozarks I’ve noticed some do better than others, however the Specific Line of a Breed also makes a difference, in my experience. This probably deserves its own post and so I’ll just give an example here:
I have Delaware chickens that happily walk around in freezing rain, dry off and are fine. A Barred Rock Rooster that caught a gentle spring zephyr and stood staring at his feet for 3 days before he recovered his mojo, and silkies that will sit out on a stump next to the coop and die in the snow.
The Australorps we sell have not been bred for SOP, rather for survival, good body size and egg production. It’s worth thinking about your purpose in having chickens. Often what is the most beautiful or extreme in a posture or coloring does not equate with good laying, carcass-size, or intelligence.
TL;DR There are many reasons for raising chickens, just read more.
Winter Watering
Watering chickens in the winter, sigh…
There’s no easy answer for this one, well not one that’s cheap. Water has the tendency to freeze in cold temperatures -I don’t make the rules, I just play the game. Remember how I said Chickens don’t output watery waste…well they still use water. An egg is roughly 75% water by weight. So a laying hen uses more -when it doesn’t get enough, egg production drops within 24-48hrs and eggs produced may have defects.
Chickens are actually More vulnerable to water deprivation than most mammals because of a higher metabolism and no bladder reserve. Within 12hrs a laying hen under any kind of stress (like cold) may have issues and within 48hrs organ damage and fatality can occur.
On average a laying hen needs about 10-20% of their body weight in water per day. Surprisingly, this goes up slightly with cold. Why? Because it’s much more related to the amount of food eaten than one would expect.
What can we do
- Heated Waterers
- Keeping waterers indoors
- Rubber tubs
- Other stuff: Vinegar, salt, heat lamp, boiling water
Heater Waterers
Well the easiest, is also most expensive. There’s a number of electric water bases with heating elements. They seem to range from $20-$80. I’ve tried a few, and they work pretty well. Issues with them: yeh, you don’t know if the power goes out -breaker flipped, goose ate the wire, goose unplugged the wire, goose pushed it off the base (normal stuff). Another issue I didn’t see coming was, temperatures dipped up for a week and I got smelly algae growth. All manageable and still easiest if you have a waterer with a larger base that sets on a flat surface.
Keeping indoors is often useful for the smaller waterers. Bring them in at night, put them back out in the morning. If you only have one waterer, this is probably the cheapest method. The risk is forgetting it, but small waterers are pretty inexpensive and you can just buy two -and switch them out every morning. Depending on how cold it is, just make sure the birds are getting enough water based on how fast it’s freezing.
Rubber Tubs
This is actually our go-to when you have a number of pens -especially if you have water fowl. Those black rubber bowls are often used for dog food, or whatever. Fill them half-way in the morning. Half-way in the evening. And then just dash the ice out the next morning to fill them again.
Other Stuff
Vinegar
We like ACV for health benefits and certainly use it. In the cold, I believe it helps their immune system and can reduce mucus, etc. However, I’ll say I haven’t noticed it do much for frozen water. I’ve seen the memes, and probably posted it myself, long ago, as a possible help for freezing.
Here’s the low down: water freezes when the molecules slow down enough to lock into crystalline form -we call that: non-drinkable ice. Vinegar has a hindering effect; it blocks the molecules from bonding and therefore slows the processes.. But Here’s The Thing: it’s not very efficient and at something like 20*F you need something like 4 gallons of Vinegar to keep One gallon of water from freezing. Technically Salt does a much better job…
Don’t Add Salt to your chicken’s water
I’ve seriously seen this suggested on a group or thread somewhere.
No. At 20*F you’d need to add over a cup of salt per gallon to keep the water from freezing. That amount is perfectly appropriate to Brine a chicken, but in that case I also recommend: 1c Sugar, 3Tbsp Garlic, 1Tbsp Pepper, 1Tbsp Mustard Seed, and 1Tbsp Rosemary -and Plucking the poor bird first.
Birds are more sensitive to over-salting.
Heat lamp on the chicken waterer
I have done it, I don’t recommend it. We had at least one partially melt a water. It’s just a lot of variables and probably depends on your exact setup. Heat tape might be more efficient at that point. I did have a setup for a bit where the light in a barn was close enough to do some good and that worked fine for the temperatures at that moment.
Boiling Water in a Kettle
This certainly can help, if you’ve accidentally left a water out, or it froze unexpectedly. Just be careful, some plastics will melt under boiling water. If a #10 Can or rubber bowl is frozen solid, some hot water can help unfreeze the edges. Remember the birds may be extra thirsty and even Warm water could be a shock to their systems.
TL;DR If you have money, get a heater. If you don’t use the rubber tub. And don’t add salad dressing ingredients to your chicken’s water to keep it from freezing.
Part 2 Coming soon..