Independence Homestead

Here’s the latest (and final) installment in our Weathering the Winter series! Today we’re talking about how to winterize chickens.

Here you can see our chicken yard in all its winter glory. Chicken wire on the sides and top of the enclosure provide predator protection. The chicken wire on the top provides protection from hawks, and it’s especially useful in winter when trees provide no cover.

Outside the chicken yard you can see this triangular shelter. When we let the birds free range, this shelter provides a protected area for food and water dishes, which keeps them from getting lost in the snow. It also gives the birds a place to get out of the weather, since chickens aren’t big fans of snow.

Speaking of food and water dishes, in winter we use rubber pans, same as we do for the ducks. Once temperatures are projected to dip below freezing, we turn off and drain the chicken automatic watering system. Poultry nipples don’t work in freezing temperatures. The chickens easily switch the rubber pan water bowls. This increases our chore time since we now have to provide water.

In terms of feeding in winter, remember that there’s less food in the environment, plus chickens are burning more calories to stay warm, so they will eat more feed in winter than in summer. The rule of thumb we follow in terms of how much to feed is give them enough feed so that some is left in an hour, but not so much that there’s any left at the end of the day.

In winter we provide a light in the coop so the chickens have more “light” hours and their production doesn’t drop off too much. Here you can see the type of light we use: a basic shop light. We have it attached to a timer, and it turns on around 5:30am and turns off around 8:00am to give the birds just a few more hours of light. Conventional wisdom says it’s best to provide the supplementary light in the morning so there’s no abrupt switch from manmade light to darkness in the evening, leaving the birds trying to find the roosts and settle in for the night in the dark.

The decision whether or not to supplement light in winter can be a divisive issue. Some people feel it’s cruel to the animals, it’s unnatural, etc. We chose to do this because the chickens need to cover their costs, and that requires adequate egg production in winter. If we didn’t use a light, their production would drop to the point where egg sales wouldn’t make enough money to cover feed costs.  This is our second winter providing light in the coop, and we’ve seen no ill effects in our flock.

We hope these tips help you take care of your chicken flock over the winter!