Winterizing Your Hens

This post is primarily for our Hens for Rent customers, but maybe it could be useful for anyone going from having easy breezy summer hens to hardy winterized year-round hens. 

HOUSING

The first thing folks tend to worry about is housing. Thankfully the hens don't care about aesthetics so that can be a detail you fill in later, at your own standards. :) The most important thing is having roughly the right sized coop for the size of your flock. Too big and they won't be able to keep warm with their body heat. Too small and they'll be producing too much heat and moisture and you'll have condensation and ammonia problems. I would rather have it a bit too big, not only to compensate for chicken math which inevitably results in more hens in the future, but also because it's easier to warm up a coop than get rid of moisture. 

Frankly, a crappy old shed or baby barn will more than suffice. 

So you want to avoid drafts, but you do want some opportunity for air to cycle, so don't just plastic wrap a whole coop and run. It needs to breathe.

I don't typically recommend a heat lamp over the long term because they are a true fire hazard in barns, especially with dry bedding and hens are much more resilient than you think, but if there are prolonged temperatures below -20 outdoors, we will put one near the nest boxes to prevent frozen eggs. We mostly only run it in the morning, having it on a time to go out by noon. 

Our winter coop is not insulated or heated. We do put plastic up over the drafty windows once deep winter temps set in, but take it off as soon as seems reasonable so that air can cycle. Chickens are really excellent at providing their own heat. 

WATER

Water is probably the most limiting and annoying part of winter housing for hens. It will freeze and there are a variety of ways to deal with it, including the most basic of providing an open, low bucket they can drink from which you'll have to dump the ice out of and refill a couple times a day. They will survive on this just fine. There are also electric-heated watering options that will stay thawed, but I don't know if they run on a thermostat or if they're maintaining a temperature all the time, therefore not cheap to keep plugged in. We opt for heat tape that runs on a thermostat, only turning on as needed. In cold enough temps, even that will not keep water running, especially overnight when the flock are not drinking enough to keep the water moving. So a couple times a winter we are inevitably forced to resort to refilling smaller water vessels a few times a day.  There is no perfect solution so whatever works best for your lifestyle and budget is the best. 

FEED

Chicken's basic feed ration doesn't change from season to season, but in the winter, I tend to offer more treats than when they're out on pasture. This gives them a more varied diet, and also a distraction from the fact that they're cooped up a bit more than they might be used to, relative to summer living. They can pick at a cabbage or a pumpkin for several days. A cob of corn is a great treat! I feed some cracked corn or mixed grain scratch (can be purchased from us) as a late-day treat in the colder temps, which will stay in their crop overnight and keep them warm from the inside out.  Just be sure to always have their main feed ration on hand, to ensure they're getting all the minerals and nutrients they need.

They'll also go through lots of oyster shell over the winter, so don't let that run out or you'll notice thin shelled eggs pretty quickly. 

EGGS

Speaking of eggs, you'll want to keep a tight gathering schedule as they can freeze, as mentioned above. When it's super cold, it's good to gather a couple times a day, just to ensure you don't miss any. You don't want to risk anyone developing an egg-eating habit. 

LIGHTING

We always run a light on a timer to keep egg production going. Left to their own devices, the hens' biological clock runs on day length, so once the days grow short, they take a break laying eggs. Some people like to give them that break, but as a farm that sells eggs, we encourage them to keep going. Have the light come on between 4-6am, depending on the natural day length. Do not try to extend the day length in the evening as the hens need the natural setting of the sun to prepare themselves for sleep (otherwise, when the light clicks off, they just stop where they are and hunker down, rather than gathering on the roost with their warm sisters). 

RECREATION AND PREVENTATIVE HEALTH CARE

We give our hens a large sandbox to play in. It gives them some variety of activity, but more importantly, it's where they dust bathe through the long winter, which keeps them clean and free of many pesky parasites. A hen house can draw in some unwelcome guests and the more we can do to prevent them, the better. 

They will use the sandbox a lot, if you provide one, but they will also poop in it, so either make it large enough that it won't matter, or be prepared to replace the sand over the course of the winter. As spring approaches and temps begin to warm up, I'll add diatomaceous earth and/or wood ashes to the sand, for a little extra prevention against mites. 

RATS, STINK, MANURE

The less glamorous parts of keeping chickens over the winter is just the result of them not going outside as much and their waste collecting.  I opt for the deep bedding method of just adding more carbon (in my case, straw) nearly everyday to counteract the ammonia from the manure. Lots of folks with smaller coops, prefer a regular clean out, which works good too. Shavings are lighter and easier to clean out, but if you have a good straw source, it can be cheaper and just as absorbent (and if it has a bit of grass in it, the hens will enjoy kicking it around and picking through it). 

Lots of people like to point to the inevitability of rats accompanying chickens. This isn't a necessity and bait boxes outside the coop in fall and spring will pretty much eliminate those pests. Rat traps work well but there are some pro tips I'm sure the internet can help you with (leave them baited but unset for a couple days first, until they eat from them and get confident around them. Then set them next time.)

Ammonia can become an issue, even with excellent air flow and decent bedding. There are products out there touted to absorb the smells, and I have used some clay products before that did help, but mostly it's a bedding issue and they just need more carbon to soak up that ammonia. My bedding goes from 2 inches to 2-3 feet deep over the course of the winter. I'm not shy with straw. Opening windows and doors when you can is a big help.  Even when it's really cold out, if the wind is minimal, during the day, it can be helpful to open the windows for a bit to exchange air and freshen things up. 

Now that I've listed all the downsides to hens, I'll share that the benefits far outweigh the negatives. The hens are always so thrilled to see what little snacks you might have brought and love the social time you might be able to offer. They will be so excited when they do get some outdoor time (although some breeds and birds appreciate snow more than others- don't be worried if yours won't go out in it) and they'll continue to give you breakfast through the seasons! And then, come spring, you'll be able to get them back out onto grass and watch Chicken TV again in your backyard. It's really not that bad and you'll figure out specifically what works for you and your flock as time goes on. They are much hardier and adaptable than you might think. And every breed is different, so you know your birds best. Trust your instinct and watch their behaviour.  They'll tell you what they need. :)

Why Wendell Berry Mattered To Me

 As a young idealistic woman coming up in the 90s, there was a constant drumbeat in the agriculture world, meant to dominate our minds to the point of erasing any foolish notions of independent thought; HOW WILL FARMERS FEED THE WORLD?  

It came from every corner of agri-business, which then and now, is the primary driver of broad communications among farmers. Conferences sponsored by ag-chemical companies, speakers paid by fertilizer companies, displays of big shiny equipment at livestock shows, all of it heralding the challenge of this ominous threat of farmers being unable to meet their potential and leave the world in a lurch. Farmers particularly impotent without the miracles of the inputs and intensive management of the agribusiness overlords, offering "solutions" at every turn. 

In grade 12, I remember trying to write an essay for a 4H scholarship, given the topic of coming up with solutions for exactly how we could "feed the world". I don't remember if I won the scholarship but I remember struggling with the idea even then, despite having been immersed in the North American (false) dream of bottomless soils and endless yields if only we bought the right products. 

It wasn't long after that, that I encountered the work of Wendell Berry.  First, his essays and then later, his poetry. But it was his essays on farming that helped form the farmer I became and gave my weary mind a life raft to hold onto in the deluge of conventional, exploitive agriculture that has been the siren song of my upbringing in 4H and Young Farmers organizations. 

He was the first white, southern American, male farmer I had read who so eloquently captured the thoughts in my heart. The first farmer I heard make a sound case for small farms and vibrant rural communities based on respect for the soil and the forests and the wild places and the livestock and the people. He was the first to herald husbandry over science, to question the concept of efficiency over care and intuition. He called for farmers to be conservationists and to let the farm be the judge of its capacity to produce. 

He shook loose some ideas in me that had been tucked away and dismissed as too radical, too Luddite, too foolish and wasteful. He let me shake off this looming threat of letting the world starve, while emphasizing the very thing that had niggled at me the whole time; how we feed the world is the wrong question, the wrong challenge. We should be asking how farmers can feed their communities, their neighbours. And then how we grow more farmers and encourage farm kids to farm. 

Once, after I was fully entrenched in his essays, I then learned that farmers could be poets, the most beautiful of poets. He was my agrarian Mary Oliver and I returned to his words again and again, comforted by a kindred understanding of the smallness of our place in the world, but our role as caretakers and stewards of our land, our communities, our families. The real magic of Wendell Berry was his ability to put beautiful words to harsh criticism in such a thoughtful way that it didn't feel harsh at all. It wasn't urgent and pushy and loud, but it was timely, timeless, important, relevant and thought-provoking in a way that we too often miss the mark on these days of quick, snappy TLDRs. 

To me, Wendell Berry's voice was a calm and quiet antidote to the noisy chanting, goading and belittling of Big Ag. Even now, I feel like I can feel him gently encouraging agrarian thoughtfulness with a "Steady on.  Steady on."