COLD comfort

Your chickens deserve special consideration in very cold weather. Have you covered all the angles? Grant Brereton offers personal advice plus thoughts on breeding pure breed poultry.

-  Grant Brereton

'Oh gosh, this is hell!' thought this middle-aged poultry keeper to himself, as he trundled through the crunching snow and biting cold - torch in hand to shut away his various poultry coops. Three days into an unforgiving bout of winter flu, coughing, everything aching, the world looked (and felt) like a very different place. Can one imagine a more depressing chore in the depths of winter - when all one wants to do is curl up in the warmth? Yet it has to be done, so the moral is to make your 'overwintering' as easy and practical as possible, allowing for the fact someone else may have to take over for a day or so while you recover, which is what happened to me early December 2022. Thank heavens for treasured wives!

Flung face-first into winter 2022, none of us are quite sure of what conditions still lie ahead (hopefully not more of the same!). It was only recently that we in the UK experienced a good run of mild winters, which made 2018's 'Beast from the East' something of a shock for many. Mindful of this, I have cut my stock down to the minimum to 'overwinter,' because it can be hard work if a little consideration isn't given to numbers kept.

WINTER BITES

Winter can be a dangerous time for poultry. It has been known for hens to die from being too cold, especially the diminutive true bantams. You must remember that your hens still need their basics. If you make no provision for them, they will fret and go downhill. I always ensure my flocks have something to look forward to in the form of conditioner seed and mixed corn in with their breeders/ layers pellets. The mixed corn is said to take longer to digest, thus serving to keep the body warmer for longer.