Keeping Chickens

Keeping Chickens In Winter

As we’re now well into our first winter as chicken keepers, I thought I’d write about any difference between keeping chickens in winter to other seasons.

Well the first big difference is the mud / wet due to the rain or snow in the chicken run. Obvious I suppose, but the chicken run quickly can turn into a quagmire in the winter.

It’s also quite ‘interesting’ having to walk down the end of the garden on a dark cold winter’s morning to let the chickens out… But as soon as you get close to the chicken coop, the reward of their ‘tap-tapping’ beaks on the door, eager to be let out to ’see you’ is usually ‘reward’ enough!

Also due to the ‘cold’, it’s important to makesure that when keeping chickens in winter, that they have access to water. A few times already it’s got cold enough to freeze their water, so makesure the chickens can ‘get at’ the water under the ice layer!

There’s also the decreased egg production due to the seasons to think about. Late summer and autumn, we got three eggs per day from our chickens on most days - this is now down to 2 or 3 if we’re lucky. I’ve read conflicting reports on the internet on whether to ‘light’ the chicken house to improve egg production.

It would appear that if we add lighting to our chicken house, then we could probably get the chickens back on to three eggs per day - as they’d be fooled into thinking it was summer time. I’ve also read of people adding pepper to their chicken’s feed. This is supposed to give them a ‘warm feeling inside’, like it does with us, again to trick them into thinking it’s not winter!

There’s a reason why battery farmed chickens are culled after a year or so, they’re fooled into thinking it’s summer all year round by artificial lighting and are basically egg laying ‘machines’ - and reduce their effective egg producing limits due to this.

Our chickens are not battery chickens, so I think we’ll leave them to sort it out themselves. I think I’d prefer to stay on the ‘natural’ side and allow the chickens to adapt to the seasons. If this means egg production is reduced during the winter then so be it.

So the chickens are going to bed earlier as it gets dark earlier in the day; and staying in bed longer! Doesn’t sound like a bad life I suppose. Of course as they’re spending more time in their chicken house, there’s also a increased need to clean them out… More time the chickens spend in the chicken house, the more chicken poo that is left in their for you to add to the compost heap.

It’s the ying and yang of keeping chickens in the winter I suppose; more cleaning to do, but more chicken poo to add to the compost that will eventually get dug into the garden - or allotment… Oh, I didn’t mention that did I? We’ve just got a vegetable allotment, I’ll add that to the ‘post’ list!

There’s also the consideration when keeping chickens in winter, of whether to add some heat to the chicken house. This could be done with adding lighting - by product of adding a light would be some additional heat.

I suppose this consideration is more worthy of action if we lived in a ‘really’ cold climate. I know as a Brit that I like to moan about the weather, but it doesn’t really get that cold in the UK in winter when compared to other countries.

We’ve just made sure that we’ve added lots of extra insulating bedding material to the chicken house, but I suppose the house could be insulated with cardboard or similar if it got really cold. Chickens are originally ‘wild’ birds, so the only thing that really worries me about them in the winter is them standing in the rain and ‘catching colds’… Feathers don’t seem to do too well in the wet!

Of course if you’re insulating the house, makesure there’s ample ventalation. Chickens can really ‘work up a fug’; they sweat through their beaks, so there will be additional condensation created by the chickens in their house and a more ‘wetter’ chicken house will result if it’s badly insulated.

We’ve also been ’spoiling’ our chickens with extra chicken food and kitchen tidbits. Taking a leaf out of the book Keeping poultry and rabbits on scraps, we’ve got our parents and other family members to join us and save up their ‘green’ kitchen waste and stale bread.

We’ve then been feeding this ‘free’ chicken food to the chickens, on top of their layers pellets and corn staple diet. Our chickens are also free to roam round our garden for most of the day light hours - as long as someone’s in, so they also add whatever they find in their garden worth eating to their diet themselves…

They’re particulary interested in scratching around the leaf pile and pile of windfall apples that I’ve left by the compost bins. It’s on my ‘to do’ list to add this to the compost, but it’s been laying here since the late autumn and I think there’s a really big micro community of bugs living in it now. I say bugs, the chickens say gourmet feast!

So we’d built up quite a pile of own and ‘donated’ vegetable peelings, bread (and even the remains of a £10.00 panettone from Julia’s parents from Waitrose!) and other odds and sods and decided to have a go at making our own chicken mash.

Basically we kept the water from the boiled vegetables after a sunday roast and used this as a ’stock’. We then got the largest pan we had and filled it with our assorted bread and vegetable goodies, added a couple of handfuls of corn and layers pellets, poured on the water, put it on a low heat, stirred and simmered for a few hours.

The result was a chicken mash that looked a bit like the consistency of ’soggy’ bread pudding. (I think the dog was a bit jealous that we’ve been cooking for the chickens and not him!) The chicken feed mash smelt ok - foodie, I suppose due to it containing waste human food!

Proof of the (bread) pudding is in the eating, so we took a plateful of homemade chicken mash up to the chickens and awaited their decision. It appears that the chicken mash got the seal of approval, as they ate it all within minutes.

We now plan to make up a chicken mash once per week - make up enough to give them a treat in the morning of chicken mash and continue with their normal chicken feed. The good thing about making your own chicken mash is that it’s chicken food for free. It would have otherwise have gone in the bin, or on the compost, so this way it’s being used and still eventually going on the compost!

So that’s about it on keeping chickens in winter. I’ll add some more soon.