It was 10 below zero here in Augusta, Maine, when I released the hens from their coop at 7 a.m. yesterday. They came out into the pen a lot faster than I expected them to, lured, no doubt, by the breakfast that awaited them.
After eating their fill, “the girls” retreated into the small, unheated coop, which is flanked on three sides by tightly packed bags of leaves. I place two horse blankets atop the metal roof when it’s extremely cold out, and there's an especially thick layer of pine shavings on the coop floor, so it’s relatively cozy inside. (There are two schools of thought about heating chicken coops. I subscribe to the view that the fire risk is too high and heating the coop makes it hard for chickens to adapt to the cold weather outside.)
By 11 a.m. yesterday, the outside temperature had skyrocketed to a balmy 0 degrees. Snow, Nellie and Hope apparently decided that was close enough to a heat wave to warrant a change of scenery, because they hung out in the pen for quite some time after they emerged for their late-morning snack. Snow decided to sit on the ground for a while, looking for all the world as if there was a heating pad under her bum.
Even Hope, who is molting and does not have all of her new feathers yet, joined the other hens outdoors. Hope’s once-spotty wing feathers are coming in nicely, but the poor thing’s neck is covered with needle-like pin feathers that have yet to open up into actual feathers. She looks like she’s being treated by a deranged acupuncturist, but she's a tough little girl.
I read recently that it’s important for chicken owners living in cold climes like ours to remember that chickens are birds, not mammals. I can see from their behavior that they certainly feel the cold, but they seem to be much more resistant to it than a human or a dog. If they have a shelter that protects them from the wind, other hens with whom to nuzzle, plenty of food, and access to (unfrozen) water, they hold up remarkably well, even in weather as punishing as this.
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