11° F this morning. Cold. But,it’s not too cold for chickens if you house and care for them properly.

It’s essential that hens stay active and eat throughout the day. When it’s bitter cold and the wind is blowing, the hens won’t want to go outside. They’ll stand around in their coop. This isn’t good for them. First of all, manure accumulates, and although it’s frozen, it’s still a source of lethal moisture. Coop air is dusty. Combine that with the damp, and you’ll see respiratory disease. So, scoop up the manure daily. Next, bed more deeply. This will keep them warmer (insulation from the cold seeping in from the ground) and will keep the coop drier. I like bedding that also keeps them busy. This bagged chopped hay and straw has lots of tiny tidbits in it for the hens to find. (The brand shown here is Koop Clean. I’ve written about it here.)

Here are the girls, right after I mucked out manure and added extra bedding. Note that all heads are down because they’re busy pecking and scratching!

I also toss in chopped alfalfa, good nutritionally and to encourage foraging activity. This is what it looks like in the bag:

The hens won’t eat all of it, but it mixes in fine with the bedding.

Because the hens kick up such a lot of dust, and bedding goes flying,

I elevate the waterer.

(That purple tub has sand and a cup of 

It’s very, very cold, but the girls are fine!

For more about winter care for your backyard flock, read this FAQ and yesterday’s post.

The temperature dropped 30 degrees in one day.

But these bitter cold temperatures don’t have me worried about my hens. They don’t need a heat lamp. They don’t need hot meals. They have dry, spacious and draft-free coops, with fresh water and good laying hen pellets. I keep them from getting bored by giving them things like pine branches and cabbages. Their feathers (almost 10,000 on each bird!) keep them plenty warm.

Still, they do burn more calories in the winter, so although I advise not to feed too many empty carbs in the form of scratch grains and breads, when the thermometer gets this low, you can indulge your hens with treats. I happened to have a box of multigrain cheerios languishing in the pantry. None of the humans liked them. This morning the sun didn’t shine, and the ground was hard with ice. It’s the perfect day to treat the hens.

I called the Ladies outside, but someone was blocking the door.

Once Phoebe and Twiggy came out, the others followed.

Everyone ate.

Phoebe loves this weather. Last night, as the cold front blew in with high gusts of wind, she was hopping about the pen, doing leaps of joy.

The Gems got their share of the cereal.

The goats don’t mind the cold at all, and they don’t need the extra calories! But, they got a handful of cheerios, too.

It’s supposed to stay very, very cold all week. I wonder what else is going stale in the pantry?

I keep a mixed flock of breeds of mixed ages, so it’s obvious that egg production isn’t my number one priority. If it was, I’d have all leghorns, and then only until they reach their second molt. Then I’d start fresh with another batch of chicks. But, like many backyard chicken keepers, I have a varied lot. Partly this is due to the fact that I become attached to the birds, and let them live into old age. (Curious about how long hens live? Read this FAQ.) Partly, it’s because I value eggs of different shell colors – it doesn’t make a whit of difference in taste, but they’re so pretty! Same goes for fancy feathers. Simply put, they’re fun to look at. Partly, I keep mixed flocks because I like the unique personalities of the different breeds.

Still, I like eggs. A lot. So, I try to select for breeds that don’t go broody. That’s why there’s only one cochin in the lot. (Pearl rarely lays, but she is quite the sight.)

Yesterday I tallied up the year end egg count. (A printable version of this vintage egg chart is here.)

The Gems are the hens in the Big Barn (seen on the BarnCam.) They hatched in the spring of 2011, so they are now finishing up their third year. From now on, egg production will go down, and I also expect to see losses as they succumb to illnesses so prevalent in older birds. Also in the Big Barn is Misty, a younger hen that had bullying issues with her own chickmates. but who was put in her place by the older hens. She fits in very well now. I started the year with 11 in that barn, but lost Etheldred to disease. I collected 1209 eggs, which comes out to about 120 eggs per bird. That’s not a lot. There was a bout of thin-shelled eggs due to a virus. There was a stretch of broodiness. There was the normal molt. Several of the hens are breeds not known for high production, like Agatha, the Speckled Sussex.

The previous year saw 251 more eggs from that lot. This is why real farmers have to keep only young chickens.

The Ladies, the hens seen on the main HenCam, are younger. This fall was their first molt. None of these chickens went broody. Some are breeds touted for high production, like the Black Stars, and Twiggy, the Leghorn.

However, Beatrix and Owly are kept for their pretty bluish eggs, and Veronica for her speckled ones. They lay, but not everyday.

The Ladies laid 1215 eggs in 2014. That’s an average of 202 eggs per hen, quite a marked improvement over the neighboring Gems. Good going, Ladies!

How was the egg count for your flock?

I start the New Years by printing out a copy of my vintage egg laying chart. Click on the image for a PDF that you can use to keep track of your own flock’s productivity.

I’ll be tallying up the 2014 egg record today. More on that later in the week.

Happy New Year!

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You prepare. You read. You might even be able to come to one of my chicken keeping workshops. You think you’ve done everything right, you bring home the chicks, you fall in love with the girls, and you expect them to all get along. But chicken keeping doesn’t always go as planned.

A peaceful flock is a relaxing and lovely thing to have in your backyard. But, all too often there’s feather picking. There’s aggression. There’s blood. It’s hard to watch. I have been giving advice to one flock keeper who built what looked to be an ideal coop and safe fenced pen. Elizabeth lets the hens out to free-range when she gets home from work. The chickens are well-fed and well-cared for. But, it wasn’t enough. The mix of breeds that she has are problematic. (Wyandottes, Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks are not usually tolerant of more docile breeds.) Although the space that she’d given the flock looked adequate on paper, it wasn’t enough for the hens that she has. One hen was attacked and bloody. Other hens had feathers pulled out. Her husband build a larger pen, which alleviated most of the issues, but it wasn’t quite enough to create the sort of relaxed flock dynamic that she wanted. Elizabeth and her husband have been to my workshops. They’ve heard me go on and on about how to keep hens from being bored. Her husband came up with a clever idea.

He created a second level in the pen using a pallet. This is like adding another 16 square feet to the run.

The girls are now all fully feathered. There’s no animosity amongst them. The hens are content. Their humans are happy. Brilliant!