{"id":405,"date":"2012-09-20T11:43:50","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T15:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/?p=405"},"modified":"2012-09-20T11:43:50","modified_gmt":"2012-09-20T15:43:50","slug":"chickens-and-the-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/?p=405","title":{"rendered":"Chickens and The Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Autumn is just about upon us once again. \u00a0Here in Southeastern MI we’ve had some pretty chilly nights and even some crisp days. \u00a0The daylight hours are getting shorter, the tops of the trees are showing some color and the summer gardens are just about done for the season.<\/p>\n

With Mother Nature at her finest (at least for me) many are preparing for a long cold winter.<\/p>\n

Usually around this time of year, many people start questioning how to keep their animals warm and comfortable thru the winter. \u00a0I have found the 1 animal most people seem to be concerned about is the wonderful Chicken.<\/p>\n

I remember my first winter as a chicken keeper. \u00a0It was scary to say the least. \u00a0I remember that first really cold night. \u00a0The temperature dropped down to a very cold 12 degrees! \u00a0I only had 2 large breed hens then and I loved them so. \u00a0I couldn’t bear the thought of them freezing to death out there. \u00a0I thought about bringing them in the house for the night. \u00a0I even got up once in the middle of the night and went out to check on them. \u00a0I found them huddled together as tightly as possible and they looked cold. \u00a0Several more hours passed till morning came and I jumped out of bed and ran out to the coop, afraid I was going to find to frozen stiff chickens. \u00a0I opened the coop door (only a brisk 17 degrees now) and out they came, happy as can be! \u00a0They didn’t seem to care one bit that is was very cold outside. \u00a0After that first night, I thought and thought about different ways I could keep them warm without heating their coop. \u00a0Truth of the matter is, large breed chickens are more tolerant of the cold than the heat. \u00a0I had a small coop with a removable roof so I insulated it with straw by simply tying sections of straw to the roof panels on the inside. \u00a0I also stuffed the coop with layers of straw and pine shavings up to about an inch below the roost. \u00a0Picture a space about 3×3 feet packed with straw with only enough room for the girls to get to their roost and to the net box and leaving the vents clear. \u00a0Most nights I would find a thin layer of ice in their waterer, but it was thin enough for them to easily break thru if they got thirsty. \u00a0That was a sign that even though the outside temps were well below freezing, the straw stuffed coop was staying relatively warm with just the 2 hens body heat. \u00a0I didn’t worry after that.<\/p>\n

I also have a chain link run for the girls during the day that I sided with left over vinyl siding I had on hand from siding the house. \u00a0I sided the North, West, and East sides of it and half the roof was also covered. \u00a0This helped shield them from the brutal winds and weather. \u00a0Al winter long they pecked their day away, comfortably.<\/p>\n

***Note: \u00a0This has nothing to do with keeping chickens warm in the winter but if you still want to have fresh eggs every day, you will need to add supplemental light (not a heat light). \u00a0This can be done by simply hanging a 100 watt light in your coop or run and turning it on either a few hours before sunrise or to extend the day after sunset. \u00a0There is some varied opinions out there as to whether it is best to add extra light in the wee morning hours or at night. \u00a0I personally do not have a timer\u2026.yet, so I extend the daylight hours for them at night. \u00a0Just before it starts getting dark I turn their light on until I’m ready to go to bed, at which point, the girls go into their coop where I have an orange colored sensor light that goes out rather quickly. \u00a0This helps to ease them into the dark hours. \u00a0I have not experienced any problems or issues adding light later in the day, nor do my chickens show any signs of being stressed by it. \u00a0The important thing in any circumstance is to carefully observe your flock. \u00a0What might be good for one person’s flock may not be right for another’s. \u00a0Watch, observe and modify as you see fit to meet the needs of your beloved feathered friends.<\/p>\n

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Autumn is just about upon us once again. \u00a0Here in Southeastern MI we’ve had some pretty chilly nights and even some crisp days. \u00a0The daylight hours are getting shorter, the tops of the trees are showing some color and the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2jrxr-6x","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}