With the days become shorter and the nights getting colder, we all like to come home and turn up the heat but unfortunately, this is not a luxury that your birds have.
Whilst their feathers should help keep them warm, frosts can damage your birds’ combs and wattles. You can apply Vaseline to the wattles and combe if you know it is going to be a particularly cold and frosty night, to help protect from harsh, cold weather.
On colder days your birds will burn more calories to keep warm. During this time, you can give an extra 10% feed without doing any harm. This means increasing the number of pellets or mash you give your birds – not an increase in their treats. As always, they need to remain on a balanced diet.
Whilst our tendency during cold weather as owners is to completely shut the ventilation holes in the house, this can be harmful as it allows gases such as ammonia to build up in the hen house. Ammonia is an irritant gas and can damage the eyes. The irritation to the eyes can cause your birds to scratch their eyes using their claws which could cause severe damage. Ammonia can also damage the windpipe (trachea) of your birds leaving them vulnerable to respiratory infections such as Infectious Bronchitis. This is the main reason for respiratory disease being more common in the winter than the summer. If your eyes sting when entering your hen house, or you can smell high levels of ammonia, then it is at a level harmful to your birds, keep the litter and house clean whilst also increasing the amount of air entering your hen house.
Although it is important to ensure that air is entering your hen house, it is important that you never expose your birds to draughts. It is common in many houses to have ventilation holes at the top near to the perches. This is usually fine for small hens but in certain circumstances, they may be directly in the line of the incoming cold air, causing them to become ill.
Drinkers can freeze overnight, although many people suggest adding salt to the water this can give your birds salt poisoning which can kill them. There are a few options to deal with frosty drinkers, for example tip out the drinkers after your birds have perched and refill them first thing in the morning, or get a water pipe insulation to insulate your drinkers to prevent them from freezing over.
Cold, wet weather can mean that your birds’ bedding becomes damp and dirty very fast. Ensure that the bedding is being replaced more frequently to keep your birds clean and dry. Keep the run as clean as possible by placing down untreated bark chippings. This will hopefully stop your birds from bringing mud into their house. Dri Bed (a drying powder containing disinfectant) can be added to the damp areas of your house to dry up moisture and kill bacteria.
On particularly wet and blustery days, it might not always be the kindest thing to let your birds out as birds such as Silkies can get wet very easily, leading to them developing a chill rather quickly.
Vitamins can be given over the winter time to boost your birds during these cold times. Chicken Vet Multivitamins can be given as a general purpose vitamin in drinking water for 5 days, then repeat a few weeks later if necessary.
Alternatively, if you wish to give your birds a daily boost, consider adding Digesti-health to your poultry feed. It contains a low level of vitamins as well as Biomos to bind fungal toxins and harmful bacteria, improving the intestinal health of your birds.
