I would like to have chickens on one of my plots for eggs and free range meat, but Im a bit ignorant as to what you do with them in winter.
Do you add extra insulation to the hen house?
if your hen house is waterproof and draft proof and full of cosy bedding then they should be okay. That's the most important thing. They'll all snuggle together to keep warm so the more hens you have, the warmer they'll be. As we only have 5 girls, we throw a few packing blankets over the top of the coop to insulate it, if it's going to be a really cold night.
these are what i mean http://www.packingblankets.co.uk/index.asp my husband works for a furniture company so we got a few free, they're really good. Not so good if it rains though :-\
Make sure you don't block any ventilation holes in the coop if you're going to cover it with something.
Thank you for your reply Poet :) It sounds exactly what I do for my dogs :)
so my new babies will be ok ;D
I found that if their water wasn't freezing then strong winds blew the waterer about and eventually it emptied out. I'll be keeping both food and water out of the weather this year but still expect to go every day to remove any ice etc. Apart from that they were fine on the lottie.
Mine also ate snow and hailstones. Dafties.
Jon
Hi!
we have four chickens - and we dont do anything different. Like someone said they huddle up to keep warm. I make sure i feed them up on chicken spice (in the food) and a few drops of citricidal in their water every third day - acting like vitamins to keep the cold away. another thing that i do is put bark down on the floor as can get very muddy and slippy if not.
Hope that helps.
I do not do anything different other than close the bob-hole at first and last light when they have all gone inside. They go in on their own when it gets dark. An extra deterrant against foxes and rats.