Keep your chooks cosy in winter with good food and a roll-down blind. Photo supplied.

Prepare your girls for the winter chill

That cold snap in northern Tas a few weeks ago caused a funny sight in my chook pen.

The morning after a night well below freezing, I watched a couple of chooks peck at the water in their container to no avail. It was frozen solid.

Frozen water isn’t too frequent here in winter. Poultry owners in North America and Europe can buy water heaters to stand their containers on but I’ve never seen them sold here, reflecting that we don’t often need them.

Still, chooks feel the cold just like the rest of us.

Mine have just started laying again after moulting (poached eggs on toast for the first time for a while!) so I want to take care of them during the colder months.

There are a few cheap and non time-consuming things you can do.

Food 

Tassie chook guru Paul Healy, who used to be on ABC Radio Chook Talkback, grew his own chili and garlic, and cooked it up into a hot mash for his chooks in winter.

My mother told me that my grandfather boiled cooked up pollard with lovelies like vegie peel. Pollard is highly nutritious bran and flour left after grain milling.

But for people on the run, my advice is to stick with a reputable commercial grain mix with an 18 per cent protein level. 

My chooks supplement that with bugs and worms from the afternoon they free-range each day. And they get leftovers like pasta, rice, bolognese sauce, casserole or fish bones. They turn up their noses at vegie peel but anything with meat is a hit.

Water

Chooks are big drinkers. They don’t gulp and go but prefer to sip and graze. Don’t think that because it’s winter they won’t drink a lot because they will, so keep your containers filled.

To give chooks an immune system boost you can add apple cider vinegar or garlic to the water. Each time I fill my containers I add a biggish splash of cider vinegar, 20ml a litre should do.

Some experts say it makes little difference; others say it lowers the ph level in the stomach, prevents worms and is a mild antibiotic, as well has having vitamins, minerals and trace elements.

Chooks spend a lot of time pecking at stuff on the ground, some of which is not too hygienic, so anything to help avoid food poisoning is helpful.

Garlic has a similar effect. If you grow your own, you may prefer it to cider vinegar. Tie a few chopped bits of garlic in muslin. Or as I did, tie it in the toe of old pantyhose and drop it into the chooks’ water. Change the garlic every three weeks and savour the garlicky chook poo aroma!

Shelter

It’s not hard to make your chook pen a little cosier for cold nights when the wind is blowing a gale and it’s raining.

Check it for leaks and places where the wind can rattle through. Constant rattling at night can put off chooks from laying.

If your pen is on the ramshackle side, block up obvious gaps but make sure ventilation is still okay. Chooks are prone to respiratory disease from inadequate ventilation, dust and excessive ammonia odour from their urine.

If you have the traditional wide chicken mesh window at the front of your pen, one idea is to create a roll-up blind that can come down in the colder months of the year.

A friend made mine from heavy plastic left over from another project, attaching heavy lengths of timber to the top and bottom. I roll it up by hand from the bottom, using twine ties to hold it up for summer and the reverse in winter.

As you’re cosying up your chooks for a chilly winter just remember, happy chooks make a happy life.