02/27 2016

Winters in Minnesota are pretty predictable. They are cold and snowy. This year was no exception. Us humans are use to it and we know how to prepare for it. Snow boots? Check. Waterproof gloves? Check. Extremely warm winter coat? Check.

What we didn’t know is how to prepare our coop and the little ladies that live inside it.

Last winter when we decided to add hens to our family we knew that we needed winter hardy chickens. A lot of research went into the breads that we chose to have. Our biggest concern is that we needed chickens that could regulate their body temperatures in sub zero or close to sub zero temps and of course we also wanted family friendly chickens. Our Barred Plymouth Rocks, Australorps, and Buff Orphingtons can do that so we went into this winter being comfortable (ok almost comfortable. Jon and I still worried every night about our ladies being too cold when the weather was -20 before windchill).

We also knew before winter started that we needed to figure out a way to keep the water from not freezing for the hens. Jon decided to put electricity in the coop in the fall so that if we needed to run a heater or something, that we could. This turned out to be a good move. The temperature of the coop did not stay warm enough on its own as we were hoping so we ended up adding a space heater by the water dispenser. Great plan right? Nope. The space heater couldn’t keep up with the weather conditions and broke. Our next plan was to use heat lamps that are mounted to the ceiling of the coop. The problem with the heat lamps is that they produced a red light every time they turned on, which was usually at night. Yes, our chickens became red light district party chickens almost every night this winter.

February 07, 2016

The bright side to this is that today it feels like spring outside. Our chickens are able to run loose and enjoy the taste of grass again. They love running around the yard when it isn’t covered in snow. Hello early spring! I am sure that you won’t last long before the next snow storm, but today we are going to enjoy you!

February 19, 2016

February 19, 2016-2

February 19, 2016-3

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