Our four hens set a personal best in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. It's a record that was simultaneously discouraging and encouraging.
How is that possible, you ask?
Allow me to explain.
As I remember it, the coldest it got hereabouts last winter was 5 below. But when I came downstairs well before dawn yesterday morning and checked the thermometer out back, it read 7 below.
That was bad enough, but it only got worse. Over the next two hours the mercury dropped. Repeatedly. By the time I headed out to release “the girls” from their coop at 7 a.m., the thermometer in our back yard, which is where the coop is located, read 10 below.
It was light out by then, so the hens were awake when I arrived on the scene, squawking plaintively and bouncing up and down in the coop. But each of them hesitated at the open door before heading down the ramp and into their pen. It was as if they were trying to size up just how cold it was out there as they decided whether to abandon their "bedroom" and venture forth.
So, chickens can withstand temperatures of 10 below in a small coop that has plenty of fresh bedding inside, bags of leaves banked up outside, and horse blankets on the roof, as ours does. Never underestimate the power of feathers! If experience is the best teacher, I learned an important lesson Tuesday that I'm glad I now know, but one that I wish the hens could have avoided.
"Chickens can handle very cold temperatures," according to motherearthnews.com. "Some experts say chickens don’t really start suffering until the temperature inside their coop falls to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit. They’ll start suffering earlier if it’s damp inside the chicken house, or if they haven’t become inured to the cold . . . ."
No major problems until it dips to 20 below in the coop? That’s a claim I hope never to have to verify - or disprove - on my own. Yesterday morning's outside reading of 10 below was nerve-racking enough, thank you very much.
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