Winterizing Your Chicken Coop

These Autumn days aren't just signaling the end of Summer and brightly colored leaves. The cooler temperatures and the return of the rainy season is also a harbinger of Winter.
Winter brings a change of routine for the homesteader. A different priority placed on chores
to be done. For instance, the cooler weather raises the need for heat, which means wood
must be chopped and stacked next to the stove and fireplace to dry out. Chimneys must be
swept at least once every other week. During the Autumn harvest it is also necessary to
process your harvest. Priority must be given to canning tomatoes, pumpkins, beets, beans,
hot peppers, making salsa and pickling cucumbers and green tomatoes. Beside making
certain you're ready for the winter, your chickens must also be ready.

You should always winterize your chickens' yards and coops before the arrival of bad
weather. Start with the outside first. That's the chickens' yard. The yard isn't just a playpen
for your birds. It's a wealth of garden gold. Over the Summer and early Autumn I leave food,
greens, scraps and scratch in the yards for my chickens. They pick and scratch through this,
turning what they don't eat into the soil and pooping out what they do eat. This is high
quality fertilizer for the garden. Bring your leaf rake, wheel barrow and scoop shovel into
the chickens' yard. Rake up the debris in the pen and scoop it into the wheel barrow. Haul
this out to your compost pile. Chicken poop is high in urea crystals and ammonium and
nitrates. Fresh chicken poop will burn your gardens and orchard, so always compost. If you
do not clean out your chickens' yard, the debris will become slimy mud when the rains come
and cling to your chickens' feet.

When the yard is cleaned out, turn your attention to the coop. Remove and clean food
boxes, nest boxes and waterers. Sweep and shovel the litter and debris from the floor and
scoop into your wheel barrow. Haul this off to your compost pile too. Be sure to scrape off
the roosts. Litter can be straw or pine shavings. I like pine shavings best, but straw is
cheaper. If you use your chainsaw, like I do, close to home it is easy to scoop up some wood
shavings as a by-product of cutting firewood and making lumber. Do not use Cedar
shavings. Cedar contains a volatile oil that is bad for chickens. Place your litter down, then
make a space to allow your chickens to dust inside your coop. Your chickens need to dust in
the Winter even when the yard is buried in snow. Place ashes from the fireplace in this area.
Ashes are a superior preventive and cure for mites and parasites. The chickens will dust in
the ashes which kill mites quickly. They will also pick and scratch through the ashes, eating
some of it. This will kill many internal parasites. They also poop in the ashes, so save all of
your ashes from cleaning the fireplace for the coop.

When finished, place the food box, nest boxes and waterer back into the coop. Your
chickens are now ready for Winter. You'll need to clean the coop a few more times in the
Winter, but a corner of the yard may be used to store the compost until Spring. This will
keep you from needing to roll your wheel barrow through a few feet of snow.
If you have the option, wire your coop for electricity and put in a heat lamp or two. Use the
cheaper clear lamps rather than the more expensive red lamps. The red lamps are useful for
raising chicks to suppress pecking and cannibalism. Clear lamps are useful for heating a
coop in the Winter which also provides a necessary light source that causes the hens to lay
during the Winter months. Without the clear light hens will not lay in the short daylight
hours of Winter.

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