Friday, December 31, 2010
A Cold Winter for My Ladies
Oh, I have read so many opinions for winter and chickens that I really question what I'm doing with my beautiful ladies. This winter in Montana has been bitter. We've hit another spell of single digits during the day and minus teens in the evenings. I've elected to keep the two heat lamps on 100% of the time. For one reason, my coop, while solid, does have gaps and I worry about the breeze that the ladies get. I also feel like even though they are mostly protected, it's just so cold that your fingers freeze within seconds of being outside. I am worried...the ladies are stilling laying somewhat regularly and I have absolutely no desire to play God and mess with the slow down that should happen in the winter. However, I've also read about freezing deaths and that scares me. I love the sweet henny pennies so much. I absolutely cannot imagine finding one perished knowing that I could have prevented it by leaving the light on! What are you thoughts? Feel free to post below. You can do so without registering with blogger just do so as anonymous. I can't wait to read what you write. Happy New Year to all my dear chicken friends!
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I don't believe that a red heat lamp will affect the natural order of things.
ReplyDeleteYikes! Tim just got the power bill...looks like the ladies will have to toughen up!
ReplyDeleteThis is our first year with our girls. My son who lives three hundred miles away decided to get more chickens and said hey I will give you my old cope if you will come get it. Well my youngest daughter in her 20's said I love a good road trip, so off she went to get the cope. Of course I was the one who had to pay for the gas so my free cope now cost me $75.00 and she just left in the drive way.
ReplyDeleteNow I needed to find some big strong guys to carry it to the back yard.
As soon as it was sitting where they dropped it I realized that the journey here had left it a little off center so that the door didn't line up and the latch wouldn't close.
As the weather got colder (here in NV) I was worried that my girls wouldn't be warm enough.
Because the cope had so many cracks I was worried that the wind would just blow through the cop. Our solution, cover it with a large tarp that covered all the cracks. We also keep a red heat light on all night and all day if there is no sun.
Being I am disabled, and live with my daughter the pallet cope looked like the best idea for our budget. So I was grateful to see your blog about taking the pallets apart. Now that I know how hard that will be I will be bribing my two teenage nephews who love to take things apart. They will just have to understand that this is not a destroying job just a take apart one.
Thanks for your blog and will be checking to see how your girls are when I can. Keep safe in all that cold weather and God bless, Debbie crazy chicken lady in Reno NV.