Updates from Kelly Milano

I get a lot of questions about winterizing our animals and how we go about that. The biggest question is if we use heat lamps and typically we do not (unless we have a lamb born in the freezing temps, then we will for a couple of days).  Our chickens typically don't get heat lamps for a number of reasons that we'll discuss in this post.  I will say that you must make sure you are getting birds that are good for your environment. In our extreme cold, we have to make sure that we have very hearty chickens! We like to stick with Rhode Island Reds, Isa Browns, Plymouth Rocks and this year have a few leghorns, austrolorps and a couple Jersey Giants. We stay away from the smaller more "show worthy" chickens and go with the tried and true when it comes to egg production, personality and heartiness.

So why do we not use heat lamps...For starters, chickens aren't humans. What feels cold to you, isn't cold to them. Where our body temperature is typically around 97-99*F, chickens naturally run 104-107*F, making them much warmer naturally, and why I believe they actually do better in the cold than in the heat. 

Because of the way their bodies are designed, chickens are well suited to acclimate to the changes in temperatures. When they eat, their digestion turns them into little heat producing machines. Their skin releases the heat, getting trapped around their bodies between the skin and their feathers. You will often see chickens poofing their feathers up in the winter and that is to keep the warmth close. On extremely cold nights, you can give your chickens extra food to increase their metabolism and help them stay a bit warmer. I've heard it said that chickens are "little fuel furnaces wrapped in heavy winter coats" and that pretty much sums it up.

Because chickens are able to adapt so well, putting a heat lamp in can cause several issues. First and foremost is the dangers of it. In 2017, when we were first starting with chickens, we had a small outbuilding that used to be a kids playhouse back in the 60s.It was super cute and had great rom for baby chicks.  We had a heat lamp  that we felt was chicken proof. It was well secured as to not fall and since all we had were chicks that were a few weeks old, they couldn't fly. We were wrong! The full story is here but the short story is that the heat lamp overpowered the wiring in the wall, starting a fire inside the walls of the coop. I managed to save all the chicks but inhaled a lot of smoke in the process and the coop was a total loss. We learned a lesson that day and fortunately all we lost was the coop in the process! If you go to Pinterest you will find a whole Pinterest board of well meaning people who love their chickens and made a huge mistake by using heat lamps. 

Another issue with heat lamps is that it doesn't allow the chicken to adapt to the temperatures naturally. If a heat lamp bulb goes out in the middle of a cold night, you risk losing the entire flock because they weren't adapted to the temperatures. By allowing our chickens to do what chicken bodies are designed to do, we have managed to take our entire flock through the extreme temperatures of the last few nights, including one that reached -41*F!!!! 

Something else that surprises people is that we no longer provide water to our chickens most of the time. I know that a lot of people say that their chickens hate the snow but we have found the opposite. If we leave a waterer in the coop, the chickens won't go outside at all during the winter. We believe the chickens NEED the sunlight, especially here in the great white north were sunshine is such a rarity in the winter, and that if we don't provide water inside the coop, the chickens will naturally go outside and eat the snow, thus getting all the "water" they need as well as some sunshine. We also found that if the waterer is put outside the coop, the chickens typically will still eat the snow instead of drinking the water, which led us to the idea to not put a waterer at all, as long as fresh snow is available. Water and cold temperatures inside a coop can actually cause problems for chickens and create a more perfect environment for frostbite. When you combine the moisture from the chickens droppings as well as from them breathing, having extra moisture from water can be detrimental. I know that in our chicken coop, even the cleanest bedding can get pretty drenched from the waterer! 

One last tip for keeping the chickens warm is to NOT clean out their coop frequently in the winter. This method, known as the "deep litter method" allows you to clean the coop in the late fall then not again until the weather starts to warm up.  You will continue to layer fresh litter (whatever your choice for that is. We simply use pine flakes fro Tractor Supply) every couple of days (or as needed) on top of the old litter and droppings.  As the droppings and flakes decompose, heat is released, raising the temperature inside the coop by a few degrees over that of the outside. That temperature change is all that is needed. The best management of deep liter method is to turn the litter every few days so that air is getting into it and helping to break it down. The chickens will do a great job of this if you throw meal worms or chicken scratch down as well, but they can't do it all alone! 

So that is a quick rundown of how we deal with chickens in the winter. Other ideas that you may need to look into depending on your situation are to create wind breaks, insulate the outside of the coop with hay bales (NEVER inside) and to check for any drafts.  Our coop hasn't had a need for any of this at this point so they aren't areas I will be discussing in this post. Our coop isn't pretty. It's an old shed that has some nesting boxes for eggs and some roosts on the wall.  No fancy lights (which we will talk about in the future), no cute little chandeliers.  In fact there isn't even electricity in it, unless we run a huge extension cord. It's minimal but functional and our chickens are happy and protected! 

Lastly, remember that heat rises so make sure that you provide your chickens with plenty of roosting places up high for them to get as high up as possible. 

I'd love to hear how your weather is and any other ideas you may have that you use with your flock!

February 26th, 2022
What a scary morning! I went out at 2am and again at 8 to feed the newborn sheep. This momma sheep doesn't usually do a good job with nursing and caring for her babies, but I'm always hopeful that she will switch into mom mode and do a good job. At 8am the little ram wasn’t acting right but he really just acted like he didn’t want to eat so I thought maybe he had been nursing some and just didn’t want the bottle. I did some errands and came back to check on them and feed them again at 11:30 and his little body was cold and listless.  

We raced both babies into the house and instantly started warming him. I put him inside a plastic garage bag with his head sticking out and put him in a hot bath. He was tanking quickly and we made the decision to take him out of the bag and submerge his whole body up to his neck. I know a lot of people frown on this but we felt desperate and the bag didn’t seem to be working. After about 30 minutes we took him out and dried with towels and a hairdryer. His sister came in to check on him and laid down next to him, like she needed to help him. She put her face and body next to his but left her booty sticking straight up in the air. She wouldn’t lay down completely. After we got him warmed up some more and saw a bit of life coming back we got a microwaveable stuffed animal and put that next to him and wrapped him in an electric blanket. He and I sat on the couch for the next 2 hours, working on warming him more! What a relief when he started moving his head to look at me and started moving his legs like he wanted to stand. 

This was an “all in” moment! It took lots of hands and several hours to save this sweet boy! It’s amazing because when they were born yesterday morning, he was the stronger of the 2 and his sister appeared weak and frail. What a difference 24 hours brings! His sister is a spitfire! She eats like a champ and is very energetic. 

Once the babies were strong enough, we got them outside with the other sheep for introductions for short periods of time. They loved the snow and bigger spaces and were running around and jumping all over the place like a young kid who was in the first snow of the season.