Keeping our Poultry Warm in Winter

 

Everyone knows how cold it gets in Winter and we keep warm by a up outdoors or staying indoors with the fire going or having our heaters going. Our chickens don’t have that luxury so there are a few things that we do to help them through the cold winter months.

Sunshine and the coop

The sun rises in the East in Australia so we have built some of our coops facing that direction so they get the morning sun into their coop to warm up after the cold night. It wasn’t possible for all of our coops to face that direction but they do get sunlight throughout the day.

All of our coops have a section at the back that they roost in and is draft free and all coops have a roost in them so they can get off the cold ground at night. We have found that pekins are pretty fragile and any hint of a cold wind in their pen can make them sick. The front of the coops have half a border of corrugated iron to stop the rain (on the rare occasion we get it) wetting the floor of their coop. We have the top half open to allow for ventilation and for the sun to get in.

We don’t have anything free ranging all day as we have issues with foxes, hawks and eagles so of an afternoon when we get home we let a pen out for a couple of hours with our dogs around to keep the foxes away. We rotate who comes out so every week they all get the chance to spend time free ranging. And the grass isn’t damp from the frost the night before by this time.

When we are breeding, it is still cool when we have chicks ready to move outside so our grower pens have been designed so that they have a large section at the back with a door that we close off and we have a heat lamp in there. So at night they are toasty and warm and during the day they can run around the back area with plenty of room. If it is nice weather when we get home we let them out in to the front area and this usually results in us chasing them around the pen to lock them up at night for a while until they work out where they need to sleep at night.

Feeding for warmth

In the late afternoon we feed our chickens a scratch mix with grains and cracked corn. Having a full crop before bed time will help them to keep warm. We also feed a high protein pellet that they have access to during the day. A high protein feed also helps them grow new feathers and stay warmer in Winter.

When we first started out we lived in Michelago NSW and during Winter our nights and mornings could get to -10. We didn’t have so many chickens then so we would make them warm porridge and go and feed them that each morning. Now we have 17 coops and live in a warmer climate and not enough time to do this so they miss out.

 

 

These are some of our current grower pens. They are about to be knocked down as they are where the drive way will be to our new shed. We are building brand new ones and getting rid of these. You can see that in picture 2 we have an enclosed area at the back. We do cover half of the wire with double layered shade cloth to keep the heat in but also give them some fresh air.

-Nathan Quayle