How to Care for Backyard Chickens in the Winter

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Winter proposes new living conditions and challenges for the backyard chicken coop. Here are some ideas to keep your chickens warm and happy through the winter season.

Want to see how I care for my chickens this winter season? Watch here:

So, you got chickens this spring. They enjoyed a beautiful warm summer. Now its winter…..

We can all agree that it’s much easier to do chicken chores in the summer vs. winter. Bundling up and venturing out in negative degrees to check on your animals is the true test of a farmer’s heart. It’s just downright painful! I’ve wondered many times if my chickens will survive the blistering, Wyoming winds and temps. So why subject these poor creatures to Wyoming winters? Because they are stronger than you think they are. And with a little help, they can handle it!

Winter presents a few new challenges that you didn’t have to worry about in Summer.

• How will I keep my chickens warm in freezing temps?
• Chickens hate snow
• Water Freezing
• You will get less eggs, that’s just how it is
• The eggs I do get are frozen and cracked

Will my chicken coop be warm enough?

As a backyard farmer in Wyoming, this is a question I’ve asked myself a lot; especially in the first years. We live at high altitude. Its dry and freezing. With winds that feel like they will rip the first layer of skin right off your face! Ok I know that’s a bit dramatic, but its real pioneer country. The first thing I want to clear up here is, that your Chickens CAN handle the COLD! Infact the heat can be harder on your chickens than the cold. Imagine constantly being bundled in a coat of down feathers.

That being said, I do keep a heat lamp in the chicken coop for those extra chilly days. We usually turn it on when the temperature goes below 15 degrees Fahrenheit. I prefer to use a red inferred light. The red light is a bit easier on the eyes. When the temps drop into negative degrees, I leave the lamp on. If it eases your worries at all, your chickens (as long as they are cold hardy breeds) can handle very cold weather. A heat lamp is the only source of heat that I use.

There are other elements in the coop that can keep your chickens warm as well.

• Some people insulate their coop
• Avoid draftiness in the coop (But allow ventilation)
• Radiant heat for chicken coop

These are just a few ideas.

What is a Cold Hardy Breed Chicken?

When we went to Hawaii this summer, there were wild chickens running all over the island. Populating like crazy! If I was a chicken, I would want to be a Hawaiin chicken! But I would never get a tropical Chicken breed and keep it in Wyoming. A cold hardy chicken breed is a chicken that can with stand colder weather better than others. If you think about how long humans have been farming and cultivating chickens, it was long before electricity and radiant heat. So have a little faith in nature, it has got this far!

Get online and research what type of Chicken would be good for your climate and family. How hot are your summers? How cold are your winters? Do you want a more child friendly chicken? Certain breeds also lay more or less eggs than others. Things to think about. A Wyoming native and old timer gave us 4 Rhode Island reds when we first started out. He had a flock of about 100 Rhode Island Reds. He swore they were the best breed for the number of eggs they produce a year, and they are cold hardy. A few suggestions for breeds that I have had success in are:

• Rhode Island Red
• Ameraucana
• Buff Orpington
• Olive Egger

Other Cold Hardy Chicken Breeds:

• Australorp 
• Barnevelder  
• Brahma  
• Dominique  
• Easter Egger
• Faverolle  
• Jersey Giant  
• Marans 
• Buckeye
• Cochin
• Delaware 

Chickens Need a Dry Place In the Winter

Once the snow begins to fall, it won’t take you long to realize that chickens really don’t like to walk in the snow. In the spring and summer, chickens love to roam about and scavenge for food. But come snow fall, they rarely venture out into the snow; unless it’s a really nice day. So, it’s important for them to have dry bedding on the floor of their coop and run. Our run did not come with a roof, but I put a sheet of plywood to cover the roof this year. And in the summer having a covered roof will provide shade, which is equally important. I layer the floor with fresh straw about twice a month.

Layering the straw makes a heat producing compost…

Come winter, instead of clearing out the dirty straw in the coop, I just layer the straw. It’s pretty difficult to do a deep clean mid-winter. So, I just layer the straw instead. The layered bedding creates a pretty good amount insulation on the floor of the coop. The layers of poop and straw also form a compost. The nitrogen (chicken poop) mixes with the organic matter (straw) and creates heat! Science is pretty cool right?! And it keeps your chicken coop warmer. Come spring, I dig all that composted matter and put it into a compost pile, or right into the garden soil (I’ve done both). Just make sure you’r not getting too much nitrogen in your garden soil; I’ve done that too!

Keep that water from Freezing!

Honestly, for me this is the most annoying part. But if you figure out a system to keep the water from freezing, it’s not a big deal. You are going to need to run electricity to your coop. It’s as easy as getting the right feeder from your local feed and supply store. Here are a couple feeders I have used. Refer to my YouTube video to see the water feeder I am currently using. Video is listed above.

The 2 gallon poultry drinker has a lid that you can lift off the top. I actually prefer to bring out a bucket of water to fill the drinker and use the empty bucket to retrieve the eggs. The 3 gallon poultry fountain does last us a few days but, requires you to take it from the coop to go fill it. It’s really a preference thing. But having an electric water heater is a MUST!

Why are my Chickens laying less eggs in the winter?

It is a little disappointing as a first-time chicken farmer to find less eggs in the coop during the colder months. Suddenly you find yourself putting eggs on the grocery list, and it’s sad. You might be asking your chicken friends, “How do you keep your chickens laying through the winter?”.

It’s simply a natural part of the chicken’s cycle. All of nature reserves its energy and slows down during winter. It’s a survival instinct for chickens to lay less eggs. When there is less daylight, a chicken’s body naturally tells itself to lay less eggs. And with the temperatures well below freezing, chickens are using every bit of energy to stay warm. There are two onions on the matter. The naturalist thinks you should let the hen have her rest and do her thing. After all, everyone needs rest! And the other tries to find a way to keep those eggs coming. Usually by getting a light to induce more day light in the coop.

Chickens actually have a predetermined egg laying life span. Meaning, they only have a certain number of eggs they are born with. They won’t lay forever! I have read, that chickens are born with a certain number of eggs, and that’s all the eggs they will ever lay. So, whether you want to induce more egg laying in the winter or go with the flow of nature is really up to personal opinion. With that knowledge, I find that my first- and second-year chickens lay better all year around as opposed to my older chickens.

I guess I take the more natural or laid-back approach. It also motivates me to continue the cycle of getting new chicks in the spring.

I keep finding Frozen Cracked eggs in the coop!

It’s so frustrating to find that half of your eggs are cracked and frozen! Especially when your number of eggs are already in short supply. During summer, we would gather our eggs in morning. But that meant that all the eggs laid the afternoon before, froze in the night. With new winter temperatures and hours, we gather our eggs in the afternoon, before the sun goes down. Hoping to get the eggs before the temperatures plumet. But on days when it’s extremely cold, especially negative degrees, the eggs freeze anyway. I usually throw those ones out.

Check out my summer chicken coop for ideas for warmer weather. If you’re interested in my homemade chicken feeder, watch this video for more details.