CHICKENS ON ICE

Finally, the first snow of the winter arrives. All right, in reality the “snow” falling fitfully out of the leaden grey skies is more accurately ice pellets, freezing rain and other indecisive forms of precipitation. Still, this morning’s light revealed a landscape of a most definite beauty as the pristine layer of white covered everything. The stone patio, walls and rock piles of Wilder Hill, only half covered as if by a shroud, looked mysterious and lovely. The radio reminds us to drive slowly today, and perhaps we can extend this advise to other parts of our lives too, despite the apparent urgency of the holiday season.

Although the precipitation brought a long over-due end to the gardening season (I was out in the lower field tying up the blueberry netting until the day before yesterday), those of us with outdoor animals will continue our daily chores right through until spring. Here at Wilder Hill we raise chickens, both meat birds and laying hens, and pigs. While the freezer is well stocked with the meat birds and pork, the laying hens are out in the coop as I write, eager to be let out into their pen for the day. I will not cover the basics of chicken husbandry here, as I am sure any chicken owner is as much an expert as the next. I’ll just pass on a few tips that might help your birds be more comfortable and productive in these cold and stressful months.

1. WATER: Make extra sure your birds have clean water in the cold months, it’s easy to forget or defer this task in a season when we are not really thirsty ourselves. And if your birds are spending more time in the coop, it’s likely they are tossing more of their bedding into the clean water. Claire Pearson, of Wilder Brook Botanicals adds a shot of hydrogen peroxide to the clean water. Not only does it completely inhibit the growth of algae and bacteria in the waterer, but Claire swears it makes the birds bigger and healthier. If available fill the waterer with warm water.

2. FEED: Be extra vigilant about saving scraps from the kitchen for your chickens and feed them out daily. And how about bringing home leftovers from restaurant meals and the more poultry friendly parties you attend to supplement your bird’s regular grain? Next, take an honest look in your fridge and pantry. You might cook up a casual stew of that neglected food you know you are not likely to eat, before it gets really old or spoiled? Your chickens and the quality of their eggs will benefit a variable diet, especially the addition of protein and fat.

3. LIGHTS: For the first time in my decades of chicken raising, I put a light in the coop to give the birds extra hours of “daylight”. I turn the light on at 4pm and off at 8pm, more or less. The results were remarkable, egg production tripled. I have not done a cost/benefits analysis (hear my friends laughing here), but it feels great to find the variably colored eggs in the nesting boxes every day and to share them with my kids and friends. Most weeks I have enough left over to take a few dozen to yoga class to earn some feed money.