Do You Need To Heat Your Chicken Coop?

I haven't posted anything about our chickens in quite awhile. You know, life just goes on and the chickens are just doing their thing! Of course egg production is down this time of year. There are a couple reasons for that. The shorter days and decrease in daylight slows them down. It's also common for them to "molt" this time of year.
When we were new chicken owners it was shocking to see a molting chicken for the first time! The poor girl looked completely battered and abused! We assumed she had been roughed up or was terribly ill! It took a bit of research on a favorite website to find out what was going on and that she would be just fine! It's perfectly normal in the life of a chicken to molt!

This girl is about mid-way through a molting cycle. These are actually new little pin feathers sprouting out and soon she will be beautiful with her new feathered cloak. It takes so much energy to go through this process that she doesn't have any left over for laying eggs! The whole process takes about a month. We have two others molting right now as well!

Yesterday a snowstorm blew through town and temperatures dropped dramatically. It's just down right cold!

I don't care much for these temperatures. I feel chilly inside my warm house! I'm wearing layers and fuzzy socks and have a blanket around my shoulders. I've already had hot green tea and hot chocolate!

I started thinking maybe the chickens need a little bit more TLC and a few more hearty food scraps...
A friend of mine called to get my opinion about the best way to keep her chickens warm. I guess us "chicken" people are all thinking along the same lines...

I don't presume to be an expert about this...I'm just telling you my opinion from our experiences and from doing a bit of chicken research. We don't heat the chicken coop! We don't put a low wattage bulb in the coop. We don't lock them up tight inside the coop. It's just biz as usual around here. Except for the temporary egg shortage! I guess we just think of the chickens as we would other birds. They seem to do just fine around here all winter.
We have some pretty hearty chicken varieties. They seem to do well in most weather conditions. We have New Hampshire Reds, Rhode Island Reds and some odds and ends Sexlinks. If you have foofy chickens it might be a different story. You know, like Silkies and such.
We also don't put a light in the coop to trick their chicken bodies into thinking there is more sunlight than there actually is. I figure good ole Mother Nature had a plan and I'm deferring to Her wisdom! If the chickens need to slow down a bit in the winter it's okay by me. I pretty much feel the same way!

Our chickens have an unlimited supply of chicken scratch in their coop. Sadly, all the sparrows and starlings in the neighborhood are aware of this. We are feeding the masses. We also have a large bowl of oyster shell inside the coop. It seems to be a nice snack from time to time and does make the egg shells nice and sturdy and strong. Now that the snow sprinkled itself all over the yard the chickens don't like to free-range like they normally would. So...every time it snows Hubs shovels a nice long path down the driveway so they can access their beloved grass.

They like the pathway and it seems they are still able to find a few random and mostly frozen bugs from time to time. Being out in the sun is good for them and wandering around as usual warms them up and keeps their circulation moving.

It was soooo cold when I went out this morning I decided it was time to make them a delicious and nutritious bowl of goodies. I was needing to clean the fridge out anyway from Thanksgiving.

Carrots, Brussels sprouts and cooked yams seemed like a good start.

I accidentally burned my toast this morning (it was much darker than this picture depicts! I was bummed) but figured the hens would be happy to have it. I found these raspberries on the bottom shelf hiding behind the leftover turkey gravy. These will be a real treat!

They were excited to see me! They LOVED their smorgasbord. They seemed happy and healthy and normal despite the cold. One thing that baffles me...we started out with 3 chickens...now we have 12!!! Sheesh...

Tomorrow they are getting a large bowl of stuffing, sweet potatoes and veggie soup. We will continue to keep an eye on them in this extreme cold. So far so good!

Oh...it's important they have a non-frozen water source! This is a heated bowl. There are many options for heated water dishes. The feed and farm stores have all shapes and sizes and systems. This one serves a dual purpose...The dogs drink out of it during the day as well!

So, as we speak, they are all roosting on their branches and puffing up their feathers to stay warm and cozy inside their snazzy coop. And, I'm still wrapped up in my blanket and thanking my lucky stars I'm inside my radiant heated house!