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Luvachicken

All ready for Winter.

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My Dad has had me worried for a few weeks now by telling me that we are going to experience the worst Winter ever.

I really didn't enjoy the snow of 2009/10 although I love looking at it.

 

Anyway, we trundled off to Rokers and I bought 2 sacks of layers pellets, aubiose, 2 sacks of chicken bedding - like chopped up straw, some tonic which I needed anyway and 2 packets of garvo treats, plus some rabbit food.

And a lovely purple scooper fell into the trolley too, so handy for scooping all that aubiose and bedding.

 

Winter can throw what it likes at me now :lol:

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My routine doesn't really change for winter. If it snows very heavily I might close the Eglu door, I think I've done that about half a dozen times in the last six years or so. And I've just collected a (free) sack of sawdust, which I'll use if the run gets too wet.

 

My run needs reroofing, I'm waiting for someone to help with that. Otherwise it'll be business as usual.

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They get actual porridge oats in warm/ hot milky water and sometimes some tuna thrown in eg if they are moulting. They get it by the bucket load when I come home from work about 3.30. There are those who disapprove of this carb loading :lol: but my hens have never had a days illness and the oldest 4 are 6 and a half years old. :D Ax

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This will be my 1st "with Chooks winter" so have been reading lots of old posts on here.

It's really helpful reading about all your ideas & plans. I'd rather be prepared than having my girls unhappy or unwell.

So my learning so far has led me to;

Invest in 2 pet water heaters, one is the heat plate that attaches to a hanging feeder & the other is the heated wire cable that will sit in the glug. I'm not exactly wishing for freezing weather but I'm interested to see which one works the best. Haven't quite figured out how to secure the electrical cable supply from inquisitive chooks yet, so that might be the bigger problem!

 

Completely cover the runs roof with a clear tarpaulin (protected on 2 sides by brick walls) so hopefully will stay reasonably dry in there, & I have a couple of smaller tarps to add across the bottom if it gets really blustery or the rain goes horizontal :shock:

 

Haven't tried my girls on anything warm like porridge yet but generally they enjoy any new food - greedy guts that they are :lol:

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Oddly, my dad also believes we're in for a bad winter - it must be a dad thing!

 

Having said that, I have already ordered a sack each of pellets and corn, that I'll be picking up on Saturday. It'll sit in the bins and will probably see two hens through the whole winter, but at least we've got it in stock, so chooks are in no danger of going hungry whatever the weather.

 

Also ordered a sack of the chick crumb that I use as cat litter - so we've got it. Along with the three-months worth of cat food sat in the freezer, Loki-cat will be fine. Dad's going to wait until the dog food we use is on offer and buy about three months of that as well - all animals catered for :D .

 

Even better, 48 bottles of wine were delivered last week, so I'm all ready for winter too :lol:

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A bad winter scares me as not had one yet (apart from 120mph storm last January) not had proper snow to deal with yet in my 3 and a half years of chook keeping!! :shock:

See dancing cloud has it sorted, .......so I need at least two cases of wine to see it through.. :wink:

 

:pray: for no snow.......can cope with the rain now after 4 tons of gravel and a bit o wind which is par for us, lol!

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I like to prepare for the winter. We s"Ooops, word censored!"e out every bit of stuff that can be s"Ooops, word censored!"ed out while the ground is hard and dry and sterilise it before it starts to get wet. Experience has taught me that if I don't it gets very smelly.

I buy a new big bag of bedding and some treats with added extras. This year I bought some pellets that sounds like Menopace for chickens.

I think the ladies are going to need more attention than I usually give them, they seem old. They're well into their sixth year and have a favourite corner where they spend most of their day. They normally love DD but didn't pay much attention when she visited yesterday so I wonder if they will find winter a bit tough this year. They've moulted and everything but their new feathers don't look all that. They have lots of fun when we let them into the garden so I'm sure they're not ill - just old.

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Try googling it :)

 

 

I dare not, it may be something rude :lol: Found it online thanks, I am at home much more than in previous years so will be able to refresh water but something to consider for when I am back to normal working hours.

 

 

Burglars are you worried about your chilblains giving you trouble when breaking into a safe? If so then then try a snuggle safe to keep your fingers toastie warm. Well that is what I thought it was when I saw the name :oops:

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I have never made mine porridge except for once when Gemma had a swollen crop.

If it gets really cold then I might give them some.

Do they prefer it in the morning to warm them up or just before bed to keep them warm overnight ?

 

I usually do the porridge about mid morning as mine gets treats (mealworms, sunflower seeds etc) in the afternoon :)

 

x

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my snugglesafe and my drink heater plate are the best things i've bought in terms of dealing with cold winter weather whilst having a full time job and not being able to monitor the drinker during the day to refresh with water when it ices over!

 

if you buy 1 thing i would go for the heater plate for your drinker. that got me through the first winter with the girls where we had a couple of bouts of snow (early 2013) and temps that were low enough for the drinker to have frozen in the day so depriving my girls of a drink without the heater plate.

 

for electricity to power it i'm fairly lucky in that we have an outdoor plug, which OH has ran a long extension cord from (an outdoor specific one) and I have then put the extenstion end in an old icecream tub with a bit cut from the side for the cable to go through. this is fixed to the outside of the WIR and the cable for the heater plate (and my chickencam!) go through the wire of the WIR. the girls arent remotely interested in the wires (but i keep them short to be safe).

 

the snugglesafe I poke in under the Eglu bars from the front of the eglu (wrapped in a plastic bag) if the night is particularly cold but only if the temps are far under zero. otherwise I just close the eglu and give them some porridge in the morning (made with hot water not milk).

 

i heard it was going to be a mild winter though? i expect no one really knows :wink:

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Hi all,

 

This is my first post on this group but I've been "lurking" for a while.

 

We have 4 lovely ladies and this will be their 3rd winter - the last 2 have been quite mild so I'm also a bit apprehensive about how to deal with very cold weather.

 

The ladies have warm porridge every morning, sometimes with a few blueberries or chopped up grapes added which they really like, and they always get mixed corn in the evening before bed time.

 

I've added extra straw in the nest box and also lined it with old cardboard and put cardboard on the floor under some more straw so I hope they will be snug and safe. They all seem to pile on top of one another when we do a quick "roll call" after they've gone to bed each night.

 

By the way, and completely off topic, how do I add a signature to my posts? I can't seem to find the right bit in the user profile thingy.

 

:)

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Hello, and welcome to the forum.

Go to 'User Control Panel', choose the tab marked 'Profile' and in the boxes on the left there should be one marked 'edit signature'. I can't recall what the rules are - it may be that you have to post a certain number of times before you can add things but I think you can set up a signature from the beginning.

 

This bears repeating although it's been said many times before - chickens don't mind cold weather. As long as they have a draught-free sleeping area and can shelter from heavy rain, they will be perfectly happy in low temperatures. It's heat that is much more risky. In the UK, even in the north of Scotland it rarely gets so cold that they're in any danger.

 

I'd be wary of cardboard as it could harbour redmite. In recent years we've had temperatures so low that the eggs froze before I could collect them. The hens were fine throughout this.

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I am in the frozen North of Scotland where temps really can fall very low and over the years since I have had my hens they have all been fine in the cold weather - if it is really really baltic then I close the door other than that I leave it open - no snuggle safe and no heated water thing - just fresh water in the morning - they are not up early anyway - its too dark and I presumed no redmite in an eglu and I use shredded cardboard for mine all the time with no problem and sometimes line the tray with some cardboard too - am I wrong?

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