Winter chicken care
This time of the year can be challenging for domestic chickens. Their jungle cousins won’t be noticing the cold and their food source probably remains constant throughout the tropical year, but here in the colder regions, chickens need extra consideration as their ground becomes saturated or denuded of greens.
Don’t be surprised if egglaying decreases or stops altogether. Egg-laying is triggered by the exposure to light received by the pituitary glands of chickens. The shorter daylight hours in autumn and winter causes a slower rate of laying.
For commercial egg production, hens are kept in environments with extra lighting to simulate the longer hours of summer daylight.
How to keep your chickens happy and healthy in cold weather
■ Provide shelter: Make sure the chook house is clean and dry. Hay or other bedding will need changing more often as hens are inside longer during the winter nights. Check that pests can’t get in. Rats are also looking for a winter hangout.
■ Feed supplementary protein and carbs: Summer is the time of plenty for hens as rapid weed growth provides juicy green salads for them to browse upon and a plethora of hopping and crawling insects as garnish but the winter is less provisional and hen owners need to supplement feed to keep their charges happy.
Plenty of grains help hens through the bleak days of winter. Bread and leftover cooked rice isn’t usually on the menu but extra carbs help hens stay warm when feathers are dropped during moulting.
An occasional treat of meat or cheese left over from some fancy meal or other raises the spirits of hens no end; offerings of protein are never refused. Protein is needed to maintain feathers and create new ones when the chickens moult.
■ Check the water supply: Hens need regular access to drinking water so make sure dispensers aren’t frozen.
■ Provide a dust bath: Dust bathing is essential for happy, healthy hens. If winter rains have turned the hen run to mud you’ll need to improvise. Mound up some soil (and wood ash if you have some handy) in a sunny corner or under an overhang out of the rain. Your hens will love their new day spa.