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* * * Look
at this space first for news and current events! Updated
November 2009 * * *
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What
to do for your chickens in November:
The rains have started. And in a lot of places, so has the cold.
Chickens can tolerate pretty low temperatures. But no matter where
you live, you should have a “house” part of your
coop where the chickens can go to escape the weather. The house
part (as opposed to the run part) should be wind-proof and rain-proof.
Where I live, the temps rarely get below 20 degrees, even in the winter.
My chickens never want to go into their protected “house” part even when
it’s cold! They roost at night in an unprotected area of the coop,
of their own accord. If you live where it gets in the negative temps
in the winter, you might want to make some additional accommodations for
your chickens, such as an insulated house part. You can also pile
a lot of straw in the house part, as it will somewhat act as an insulator,
too. You can even hang a drop
light or heat lamp in the house part, and run an extension cord out
to the coop, just for those nights when it gets really cold. (Just
make sure the lamp is well above the straw.) If your chickens still
don’t want to put themselves to bed in the warm part, you can place them
there yourself if it makes you feel better. Just block them in for
the night, and let them out into the run part in the morning. Now
let’s talk frozen water! When the temps get down below 32, your bucket
or container of your chickens’ water will freeze. My low-tech way
of handling this is just to pour hot water onto their ice in the morning.
But we don’t have too many days per winter when I have to do that chore.
If you have a lot of frozen days, you can buy or make a
water heater, of which you can find a number of designs for, by typing
"poultry water heater" into Google. One last thing; in the winter
months the days get shorter. Oftentimes a hen’s egg laying will slow
down or cease altogether until the days get longer again. But you
can “trick” them into continuing laying to some degree by hanging a low
watt fluorescent bulb in where they lay eggs. One year when my chickens
stopped laying altogether in the winter, I used an extension cord and ran
a light out to their house. I hung a 6 watt fluorescent bulb in there
and plugged it in only at night. Within 24 hours I got an egg.
Some people claim this is “hard” on a hen, by forcing it to lay when it
is not supposed to. All I can give you is my opinion, which is that
it’s not.
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The Mad
City Chickens documentary is coming to Portland, Oregon on July
25th, 2009. The public screening will follow the annual ‘Tour de Coops’
presented by Growing Gardens.
Show starts at 8:00pm at a venue called “:vendetta” . . . 4306 N. Williams
St., Portland Oregon. . . . for more info contact: Judy
Collinstef, Publicist, Tarazod Films . . . . www.tarazod.com
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Some of the publications
TheCityChicken.com has been mentioned in:
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What do all these terms about eggs mean?
Cage-free, Free-Range, Certified Organic,
Certified Humane, Animal Welfare Approved, United Egg Producers Certified,
Vegetarian, Natural, Fertile, or Omega-3 Enriched.
. . . . See the bottom of
this
page of TheCityChicken.com for more details!
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Welcome
to TheCityChicken.com.
It's a web site to encourage city folks to take the plunge into poultry!
You can have chickens...It's easy!
I put up this website to inspire people who have been wanting to
keep some chickens in their backyard.
I hope the pictures and info will motivate you to try what you've
been wanting to for a long time: Bring a little country
into your city life. You are looking at this
web site because you've been bit by the chicken bug and need to
know how to get started with your chicken-keeping endeavors.
Well, you could start here! - - - Katy
Skinner, the Pacific Northwest, USA.
Some
videos I’ve taken of my chickens:
