How Cold Is Too Cold For Chickens With No Electricity? 12 Tips For Success.

Chickens

Here are 11 Tips that helped my hens have survive the worst of this hard 2021 winter, plus a bonus I might use for next winter.

In mid-February, I woke up to -6 (not counting wind chill), but we had expected a low of only -2. I was afraid of what I might find this morning even though they had survived a night of -8 just a few weeks before. This cold has just dragged on and on though, with no break. The good news is that they were all alive and active this morning. The bad news is they refuse to leave the small coop even though I’ve removed all the snow from their little chunnel (chicken tunnel) and filled it with cut up vegetables and cracked corn and other chicken scratch. In four days I’ve only seen the evidence (chicken tracks) that one chicken actually left the coop when the temp got all the way up to 16 degrees. Despite them refusing to leave their little house, they’ve made it through a really tough near-blizzard Midwest winter. Here’s how:

#1 – Choose a tough breed. We did not choose a specifically cold-weather breed. We own Plymouth Barred Rocks and Rhode Island Reds which are hardy and do well in all types of weather. The plan is that the next round of chicks will be Australorps which hail from Australia and have small combs and wattles with solid black feathers. If you want to get really serious about sailing through winter though, the Chantecler would help you sleep well at night. Canada developed this chicken to survive harsh winters and avoid frost bite with ‘pea’ combs, very small wattles and big warm bodies. The Russian Orloff chicken is also incredibly cold hardy, as you would imagine, but primarily a meat bird that lays about 100 eggs a year. We have some very hot summers, so I may have to just settle for tough breeds.

#2 – Acclimate your birds through the fall and early winter. Bringing out heat lamps and closing up the coop too early is a disservice to your hens . I cover this pretty extensively in my early winter post, so I’ll just repeat that you want to add the hay and plastic coverings slowly so your chickens begin to put on their ‘winter coats’. Just like our kids eventually agree to put a jacket over a T-shirt and then graduate to parkas over sweatshirts, the chickens need a little chill to signal their feathers to puff out and begin insulating them.

#3 – Fresh Hay insulates better and keeps odors down, but nothing needs to be wasted. Move the hay through by raking the poo-laden hay in the eating and drinking area out to the chicken yard so the hens don’t have to stand directly on ice and snow. Then rake the hay out of the roosting area into the eating area. Empty all the nesting boxes into the roosting area and then finally put fresh hay in the nesting boxes. How much hay will you need? More Hay. Always more. Hay is your friend especially if you are unable to run electricity to the coop. You are not limited to putting hay inside the coop. Pile it high outside too! Why not pile it on top of the roof? Even put some along the pop door to keep cold winds from blowing in. As we went into this long stretch of negative temperatures I decided to forgo retrieving any eggs and instead filled the entire nesting box to the top with hay as insulation for the hens. This may cause me a few egg-eating problems down the road, but it’s far more important to me that the hens survive this week.

#4 – Bring on the Snow! Snow is actually an insulator when there is a layer of leaves, hay or some other dry insulator in between. Just like an igloo protects, a blanket of snow over the top of the coop and piled up at the edges creates insulation. Deep snow is better than bitter winds with no snow to slow it down or protect your roof. If you have to remove snow from the nesting box roof or other location, throw that snow up on the roof and let it go to work for you.

#5 – Small sleeping areas are a survival tactic if your house looses heat. The idea is that a whole family grabs sleeping bags and everyone camps out in one of the smaller bedrooms. If it is still too cold, a family can put up a camping tent in the middle of the small room and that will usually get a family through even blizzard-like conditions. We use a similar trick with baby chicks where the heat lamp shines down into a smallish box (with a tiny chick-sized door) at the far end of ‘chick yard’ and the food and water are at the other end. This set-up allows the baby chicks to get as warm as they would ever want to be and then leave to cool down, get a drink, eat a little and play. The option of different temperatures allows the baby chicks to acclimate to colder temperatures without threatening their health. The big caveat with reducing the size of the sleeping area is being completely certain that their is still enough room for every single baby chick or chicken plus a little extra for bullying! If one chicken is left out she won’t survive being on her own. The good news is that it seems that even the rudest hen is happy to have the bottom of the pecking order next to her when it is bitterly cold, but that is something you want to be certain of. Also, give some thought to how many chickens you have. I have 6 and they produced enough body heat to make this work…I’m not sure how 2 or even 4 hens would have faired in a winter like this without some electricity.

#6 – Good ventilation is a must at all times for chickens (even in winter) because they tend towards respiratory problems. Ventilation also reduces frost-bite on combs because the moist air can escape instead of settle on their heads. However, heavy snow fall can block your ventilation ports and suffocate your hens in their sleep. We were so lucky that our ports didn’t get blocked overnight, and when I work on the coop this summer I plan to put ports in all three peaks. The three ports on the side are very attractive, but locating ventilation at peaks and over doors completely prevents them from being blocked by snow unless we get 3 feet in a single evening. If I had realized that earlier I could have completely covered the screens this winter and piled even more hay against the outer wall.

#7 – Radiator Waterer. Most chicken keepers that don’t use electricity will note that they change the water twice a day when it begins freezing. We took that a step further and fill our 1.3 gallon waterer with the hottest water my tap can produce and hang it in the coop as a sort of ‘radiator’. The hens seem to enjoy a hot drink of water and I’m quite sure they enjoy the extra heat boost. The waterer hangs in the most exposed area of the coop, so if the water is completely frozen when we change it out that is a good indication of how much heat the coop is keeping.

#8 – Keep it Dry! Keeping the coop as dry as possible helps prevent frost-bit combs, respiratory distress and helps maintain heat. The waterers have been a headache in this regard because they tend to leak if a child (or a mom) bumps them as they are hung. At every waterer change I break about two handfuls of frozen hay out of that corner and dump it into the chicken yard. Despite this, creating a transition area between the pop door and the nesting boxes and roosting areas is going to pay off in the frozen winter and in the rainy spring and fall. Think of it as a little mud room or foyer where they can wipe off their feet and shake off the rain. A designated space for this also helps keep that hay moving to the next best spot.

#9 – Deep Litter! Our litter isn’t very deep because the rooster and our other two hens spent the summer at the Green House. When I moved hay from the sleeping area to the eating area, I just moved the very top layer that had gotten wet and had begun to smell. A well designed coop (and my lovely little white coop is very flawed) will make use of deep litter to such an extent that the micro-organisms breaking down the deep litter generates noticeable heat. A really healthy nitrogen-rich deep-litter becomes a source of heat…natures own original radiant floor heating. I hope to get this set up properly at the greenhouse and then report back on how that is going.

#10 – High Fat and High Protein Treats. Now is the time to pull out every last suet cake you have in the freezer. Here is how to make one with stuff you usually throw away. Your hens need every last one. If you found a cracked egg, now is the time to fry it up and give it back to your hens. They need every little bit of fat and protein you can scrounge up for them. Hen’s actually have very high body temperatures, which is how they keep their babies warm, but that also means you need to help feed that furnace. How is the best way to give them those treats?

#11 – Boredom Busters. Putting all the chicken treats in a suet cake holder helps keep food off the ground and also gives them something interesting to pick at. Hens can really up their ‘mean girl’ game when they are under stress. A rooster helps with this in general, but Sunny can’t be in the subdivision, so the girls could get naughty if we don’t have interesting chicken things for them to do. Scratching is the chicken’s favorite thing to do, so we have offered lots of chicken scratch tossed directly into the hay so they will keep turning it and keeping it fluffed. Putting whole bits of vegetables into the suet cake holder also gives them something green and refreshing to get after, which they enjoy. I recommend this suet cake holder because it is huge and will hold all shapes and sizes of treats.

#12 – Turkey Friends! While getting a building permit for the new chicken coop, and got some great advice from a long-time chicken keeper. She found that having a turkey in with her laying hens made a world of difference in the heat in the chicken coop. Apparently a turkey generates far more body heat and her coop was almost hot all last winter. This year she ate all her turkeys before the weather got really cold and she had to get out her electric heaters. As a bonus, she found that when she had no rooster, but had a tom turkey in with her hens that she never had hawk problems! That is a fascinating option! I might need to get out my favorite chicken book again and read up on how to integrate turkeys with chickens.

Hope these ideas help you. My beginning winter preps done in December can be seen here. The winter started out mild and even an ice storm and snow that lasted many days was well tolerated by the girls. If your weather starts to get really bad, I hope you find this useful!

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Perpetual Resource Cycling™©: A Big Idea Who’s Time Has Come

Big Ideas, Build, Chickens, Featured Favorites, Plants

Let’s spend a little time on some ideas that are worth digging deep into. The idea of Perpetual Resource Cycling™© combines three innovative ideas into one lovely package. This idea can be applied to all sorts of businesses, social and household functions, but I love applying it to small farms because it offers solutions you can literally lay your hands on.

Perpetual Systems are systems that when set up properly need minimum maintenance. If you owned a perpetual motion toy as a kid you know that they don’t truly work forever without any intervention, but they do make amazing use of the natural forces around us that we don’t have to exert energy for. Gravity, centrifugal force, hens digging up the ground….these are all unstoppable facts of nature. Designing systems that not only account for these forces but count on these forces, adds efficiency. Having even one Perpetual System on a homestead or farm is a worthwhile investment of time and money.

A ‘Perpetual System’ example would be the old grain mill making use of the river’s water power. A smaller version would be throwing scratch grains inside the chicken coop in the winter to encourage the hens to fluff and turn the deep litter.

Everything is a Resource refers to anything you have (or know), not just the things the neighbor thinks of as valuable. Why nit-pick the distinction? If you’ve been reading about homesteading for a while you’ve probably come across ‘a weed is just a useful plant in the wrong place’. This mindset helps us see past what we currently don’t have and ask ourselves how we can get where we want to be using the resources we already have. One thing I know we all have a lot of is household waste. After we take our donations to the Salvation Army and flatten our milk jugs for the recycling bin, we still have quite a bit of waste coming out of our homes. From grey water to egg shells, a small farm offers opportunities to reuse these resources that city life makes impossible.

An ‘Everything is a Resource’ example is the humble dandelion. Although poisoned by homeowners all across America, the French adore them as salad fixings, with some European chefs eating petal to root. Horse manure is another example an organic gardener can appreciate. The stable owner is oppressed by so much poo…the gardener eagerly pays good money to have it delivered.

Cycling is just the process of going around…those outside of homesteading might first think of a bike. Recycling is perhaps the next most common word association. How about we leap frog our thinking out to the ‘Velocity of Money’? In the world of economics we find that the faster (velocity) money moves around an economy the more good it does. Don’t get me wrong, savings are great for individuals, but that dollar bill does more good for a community when it is put to work than when it is put under the mattress. With just a modest inflation of 2% a year, the value of your money is cut in half every 35 years. The same sort of effect happens to our resources that can rust, rot or spoil. Keeping the resource engaged means it does more good. The faster it moves, the better.

A ‘Cycling’ example is the simple compost bin where all spent plants, ‘weeds’ and grass clippings go into the compost bin. The contents of the bin are then added back to the garden. To increase the velocity of the compost, we could introduce chickens to the compost bin that will eat the food bits that interest them, returning them to ‘soil’ in less than 24 hours and constantly turn the compost causing it to break down faster.

A perfectly closed loop can be cost prohibitive, so I would argue that good Cycling can simply increase the number of uses before disposal. An example are the innovative sinks/toilet combinations that allow hand washing water to drain directly into a toilet tank that then becomes the water used to flush. There’s even a kit to add a sink to your existing toilet. There are other great water examples that really got my mind working in this grey water book.

When we put all three concepts together we can see how complimentary they are. If you are reading this, you probably do a few of them currently. The idea behind Perpetual Resource Cycling™© is to up level what we are doing to enjoy even more of the abundant life we’ve chosen.

The best way to see the distinction is to compare what we typically do in our farms and backyards with what we could be doing. A typical mindset might be: the chicken gives you an egg; you eat the egg; put the egg shell and other kitchen scraps in the compost bin; 6 months later put the compost bin contents on the pumpkin plant; 4 months later give the chicken the pumpkins that were too damaged to sell at market; chicken eats pumpkin; chicken gives you egg. In this long cycle you have continued to feed the chicken for the 10 months between the first egg they gave you and when you finally reward them back with a pumpkin.

Perpetual Resource Cycling™© would take this great start and up level it by digging into all three concepts. The end result might be: the chicken gives you an egg; you eat the egg; tomorrow the crushed egg shell and other kitchen scraps are fed as chicken treats; 1 day later the egg shell and kitchen scraps are fully broke down and ‘deposited’ in the chicken run (and the chicken gave you another egg and you gave it more eggshell and kitchen scraps….); a row of Amaranth and pumpkins are interplanted on either side of the chicken run (roots and young plants protected by hardware cloth); 3 months later seeds begin to fall into the run for chicken treats (Amaranth seeds continue to fall until early winter); chicken gives you an egg; 1 month later pumpkin matures and is fed to chicken; chicken gives you an egg. In this shorter cycle you have still continued to feed the chicken, but the eggshell itself was cycled back to the hen within 24 hours and the hen cycled that into plant nutrition within 24 hours. By skipping the step of moving the chicken poo, you save man hours, and all the nitrogen and other minerals that the chickens produce (a resource) are available nearly instantly to outstretched plant roots. You get your pumpkin 6 months earlier and your chickens get a treat of egg shell calcium the very next day. Less vitamins, minerals and nitrogen are lost to rain and sun exposure. You may not want to eat Amaranth and pumpkins growing so close to the coop, but your hen’s diet is supplemented and there is plenty of extra chicken poo to compost for human crops.

Hens supplementing their diet and speeding up home composting while entertaining themselves.

In this Perpetual Resource Cycling™© example we have expanded on all three areas. Perpetually we recognize that we can save energy/man hours by planting crops at the very edge of the source of nutrients, this proximity also allows it to capture extra moisture and nitrogen that would be lost in waiting for a move to the compost bin. Perpetually dropping seeds also allows us to extend the Amaranth harvest until every seed is mature (bonus entertainment for the hens). Resources are everywhere in the form of the edible egg, the calcium rich egg shell, the kitchen scraps, Amaranth seeds, pumpkins and yes, chicken poo. Cycling keeps it all moving as quickly as possible by allowing the chicken’s digestive system to speed up the break down of eggshells and food scraps. Cycling is naturally improved by the use of Perpetual systems because automatic is always faster than waiting on a human to find time to do something. Cycling is also sped up by recognizing Resources because we value Resources…if we have a well-designed system then putting that Resource to use is faster/easier than storing it.

Perpetual Resource Cycling™© on a industrial scale is displayed in Sweden’s ‘Waste To Power’ program that uses trash to power their electrical grid. Sweden has a long history of innovative ecology and they know that trash/waste is a perpetual issue. They have been quick to recognize that waste can be a Resource. They Cycle waste quickly by sorting out recyclables and converting everything else into electricity. It has become so successful that they actually import trash!

Perpetual Resource Cycling™© always works towards zero maintenance, waste and storage through smart design and integrating systems….not by adding machines or equipment. It looks at the bigger picture, and often finds innovative breakthroughs in our forgotten pasts.

We will be offering training in Perpetual Resource Cycling™© with an over-all designation of Perpetual Resource Management™©. See the homepage under Services Offered for more information.

Horse Photo: Highsmith, C. M., photographer. (2014) Scene from the Cannon Quarter Horse ranch near the town of Venus in north-central Texas. United States Venus Texas, 2014. -09-02. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2015630743/ Bike Race Photo: Highsmith, C. M., photographer. Bike race on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. Washington D.C. United States, None. Between 1980 and 1990. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2011632658/.

Brass Egg™ participates in affiliate marketing programs, and may receive compensation when you click and purchase from links to retailers. Brass Egg™ of Russell Holdings Group, LLC 2021. All content ©2021 Russell Illinois Holdings, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Recommended Reference Books for Small-Scale Farming

Big Ideas, Worth The Money

The following reviews are books from my own personal library that I’ve collected over the years in a quest to Prepare for Abundance. This article covers the best reference books for the small farm that I have read yet. Some perfect for gifting to a homesteader, but too overwhelming to help persuade a reluctant spouse. Books are listed in order of preference, with the first book being my favorite of the grouping and so on. This is just my opinion to serve my particular purpose, so I give enough honest feedback about the book that you might find that my last listed book is just exactly what you have been looking for.

Sample Illustration from The Permaculture Handbook.

The Permaculture Handbook
One of the foundation books you need in your library to get motivated and inspired to begin your small farm adventure. This fantastic 400-page work comes recommended by Mother Earth News and is attractive enough to give as a gift and well-edited enough to keep the most easily distracted of us engaged for page after page. The two columns that explain the value of pigeons are a perfect example of why you want to own this book. In just two columns I am inspired, informed and encouraged that their are other ways to have modern conveniences without the modern price tag.

Although filled with drawings and photographs, this is no picture book. The cover photo is the only staged and picturesque photo you will find. That is no problem if you are already excited or curious about building a small farm. I mention this to warn you away from letting a hesitant spouse thumb through the book. The ideas contained inside can quickly overwhelm the uninitiated. The photos would be very discouraging to my city-dweller spouse who doesn’t want to live in a constant construction zone. Great book that I highly recommend, but I also recommend you hide it from anyone who might discourage you from your dream.

The idea of ‘Garden Farming’ is referenced and explored again and again even though the actual book title touts ‘Permaculture’. Garden Farming is a an idea we can easily get behind because it’s accessible to most anyone with a yard or access to someone else’s yard. It’s attraction is highlighted when we read that this hobby farm idea saved the Russian people from starvation when the Soviet Union collapsed. Now those little hobby farms provide, “50% of the countries vegetables, fruits and dairy on 7% of the land.” (pg.3) Now that shows the great potential of a concept that is incredibly easy to start.

Permaculture embraces most every concept I agree with. The only permaculture concept I don’t embrace is a heavy reliance on trees and shrubs. A reliance on trees and shrubs can quickly become a discouragement for the beginner because there is such a time lag between planting and fruit that the ‘delayed gratification’ can cause beginners to give up on the entire concept. The second issue with relying heavily on trees and shrubs is related: recovering from any sort of setback can take several years. Say an ice storm destroys your entire orchard or a disease kills not only your whole stand of fruit trees, but contaminates the ground so that you can’t plant the same type of fruit back again. My childhood failures with grapes, pears, apples and peaches may be clouding my vision on this one issue though. As long as their isn’t a purist insistence on trees and shrubs as an essential element of farm design, Permaculture is a fantastic concept. It can become an obsession just like homesteading, but understanding the concepts as you design out your own little farm or backyard garden can make expanding your project so much easier down the line because you will know as you design where to leave blank space for the big innovation you have planned for 5-10 years down the line.

Sample illustration inside Encyclopedia of Country Living

Encyclopedia of Country Living
Now going on 50 years in print, this book is a classic. Much like the encyclopedias of our childhoods, it provides good insights into a wide range of concepts. With over 900 pages of entries, this can be seen as a ‘box of chocolates’ where you sit down and zip through an endless parade of ideas and concepts. It is a primer that can get your thought process going if you are still trying to decide what interests you in the realm of making your own abundance. As proof of the far-ranging concepts; inside you will find how to sharpen an axe and how to deliver a baby. How to build a barn and how to grow your own coffee.

Sample Illustration inside Country Wisdom and Know-How

Country Wisdom & Know-How: Everything You Need to Know to Live Off the Land
The danger with these encyclopedias is that they can quickly become ‘Jack of All Trades, Master of None’. With that said, my 2004 edition is an ambitious work that embraces many of the recreational aspects of Country Living like feeding birds and making candy along with some advice that would seem at home in a preppers book. The font is small, maybe 10 or 9 and three columns are spread across 13.5″ x 10.5″ pages that feel a little bit like a small newspaper. These aspects make it a very impressive gift item though. Just the sort of thing you share with someone who has begun gardening or chicken-keeping. The kind of book you really shouldn’t read before bed because you will be unable to sleep…you will be too excited about the possibilities.

Brass Egg™ participates in affiliate marketing programs, and may receive compensation when you click and purchase from links to retailers. Brass Egg™ of Russell Holdings Group, LLC 2021. All content ©2021 Russell Illinois Holdings, LLC. All Rights Reserved.