Hen Chronicles: It's cold in Maine in January, but life goes on

The deck thermometer read one degree above zero with a wind chill of eight below as I headed out to release and feed our hens at dawn today. The cold concerned me but it didn’t terrify me as it had in 2012-13, our first winter of  chicken keeping.

Back then, I greeted each drop in temperature as a test, as I tried to determine how much cold hens can withstand in a small, unheated coop. 

“Okay,” I’d tell myself, “it dropped to 15 degrees overnight and the chickens are fine this morning.” That was followed by a 10-degree test, a five-degree test, etc. I still don’t know the winter tolerance limits of chickens, but I do know, from personal experience, that they can handle readings as low as 15 below without ill effects.

Initially, the temptation was strong to heat the coop. Some people do. But there are two very compelling reasons not to follow suit. One is the risk of fire. The coop has wooden walls. Its floor is covered with a thick layer of pine shavings. Add electricity and heat to the mix and you’ve got a potentially fatal accident waiting to happen.

Many experts also argue that heating a coop may do more harm than good because it makes it difficult for chickens to acclimate to the season. Our "girls” are heavily feathered (now that the dreaded molt is behind us). Chickens generate a lot of heat while sleeping, and our three musketeers — Snow, Nellie and Hope — share the warmth on winter nights by snuggling together on the roost in the coop.

The people who know more than I do about such things even say it’s important not to completely close off a coop on frigid winter nights, despite the obvious inclination to do so. I’ve read, over and over again, that ventilation is a higher priority than heat. Moisture and ammonia can build up in a closed coop, causing frostbite and respiratory problems.

So I’ve tried to strike a balance, which has worked out well so far. I close one of the coop’s two windows, but leave the other one partially open. The closed window has a saddle blanket tacked over it, to help block the north wind. I toss saddle blankets over the coop’s metal roof, place extra shavings on the floor and bank bags of leaves against the outside of the coop, to provide insulation.

Despite the single-digit temps, the girls were their normal selves when they emerged from the coop at 7 a.m. They clucked. They ate. They groomed. They strutted. They surveyed their surroundings. It may have been damn cold out there, but on Planet Chicken it was business as usual nonetheless.