It’s finally November! Which means the remaining chickens of my flock have arrived! So now we are up to 32 birds in total!
That’s 4 Geese, 2 Ganders, 3 Roosters, and 23 Hens. These are all Egg Layers. The only chickens I will be eating are when we hatch new chicks each year, if we end up with too many Roosters. The Gaggle of Geese are flock protection/”watchdogs”. They make a real fuss when strangers come around which is really nice.
I’ve added the extra straw bales to the “loft” in the Coop, as well picked up another 24 bales to store under the Yurt. I will be picking up another 24 in a couple weeks before the real snowfall. That will put my stock up to 75 bales, which will be more than enough straw for the winter.
I will be adding foil insulation to the walls in the coop as passive “heating”. This kind of insulation is similar to the insulation that the astronauts use in space. It’s super light weight and reflects some 99% of the infrared(heat) energy that hits it. Effectively the flock will be heating the coop themselves and maintaining their heat. Heating for chicken coops is a very “hot topic” pardon the pun… many people say the flock MUST have supplemental heat, and many say they don’t need it. I say it depends on the bird breed, but I must also ensure the flock has acclimatized to the cold weather here. I’m entirely off grid so if I had a battery fail and the chickens relied on a heat lamp, they may not have developed the plumage to retain body heat and could die quite easily. So by allowing the birds to endure the cold, they grow the feathers required to withstand the cold weather. It might sound cruel, but they don’t seem to mind, even at -10C they are out running around looking for bugs etc. to eat. Most of the time they don’t even go back inside till it gets dark out. Again this is a hot topic. There are pros and cons to many different ways of caring for the chickens. Do what you feel is best for your flock.
