Winter Has Arrived.

In my last post on Montana Farm Life, I spoke about how winter was holding off for the time being and we were still mountain biking in the valley. That is no longer the case. Winter has arrived and it has come with vengeance. Our local ski mountain, Bridger Bowl has received 50” of snow in the last 5 days. This snow as desperately needed both on the ski mountain and on the farm. The Gallatin Valley has never recorded a drought, and I was getting worried that this year might be a drought for us. The snow fall is so important for the health of the rivers, creeks, and land in the mountains and in the valley. We need the snow fall for our hay crop that we harvest every year. Without the snowfall, we lack the moisture needed to produce a fertile crop of hay. Not only does our livestock depend on this hay all winter long, but we sell a large portion of the hay to local ranches to support their livestock. I am so thankful that we are starting to get significant snowfall.

One thing I am not thankful for is the extreme low temperatures that we are experiencing. Much like most of the midwest and northern plains, we are getting very low temperatures. This is due to the polar vortex dipping down into North America. This polar vortex usually stays up in the arctic, but due to low winds the polar vortex is creeping down into lower regions this year. It is amazing how quickly the weather can change in Montana. It feels like one day you are driving with your windows down, and the next day you are wearing all of the clothes that you own!

It has been fun going through this cold weather and getting all of this snow. Temperatures are likely to dip below -20 degrees Fahrenheit we are planning on bringing our four chickens indoors. They might be able to withstand this cold, but we do not want to take the risk of losing them.

I will keep you posted on how things turn out after this weather passes. I’m having fun with it thus far, but am looking forward to when temperatures return back to normal.

Chickens | Helpful Tip for Dealing with Heavy Snow

If you live in a cold climate that gets lots of snow during the winter then join the club! Living in Montana we get lots of snow and have very long winters. All of this snow makes it difficult to keep our chickens happy and ensure they do not get too bored or cooped up. How exactly do we do this? Well we get creative and make sure to give our chickens lots of love during the winter. ❄️

One of the things we do to help our chickens during the winter is shovel out snow. Our chickens hate walking through the snow and they don’t like to get their feathers wet. To help them, we carve out a path around the coop to give them the ability to make laps around the outside of the coop. This allows them to stay occupied during the sunny winter days, and keep them from feeling cooped inside the coop. We also bring them fresh lettuce, arugula, and apples to munch on so they have something to do.

When we do this, we see a dramatic increase in their happiness and it makes us very happy to see them enjoying their time outside. So if you live in a snowy winter climate, try this trick out and help your chickens survive those long winter months.

-JG

After lettuce…

James Gibbon - Winter in Montana with Hens

James Gibbon as a first time chicken owner in Montana, it has been interesting to learn how best to care for the chickens during the cold winter months. In Montana, we have already had significant sub zero temperatures and it’s only October. This is really early for us and it has caught us by complete surprise. We were not prepared for the low temperatures and have had to rush to provide comfort, warmth, and water to our chickens. Although there is plenty of information online about how best to do this, we have taken a more trailblazing like approach. This is our experience.

James Gibbon

Our first step towards securing the hens for the winter was purchasing a water heater for the coop. We purchased a standard water heater built to work with galvanized waterers. A link to the water 💦 heater we bought - https://www.amazon.com/Farm-Innovators-HP-125-Poultry-125-Watt/dp/B000HHQDPM/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=hen+water+heater&qid=1572373243&sr=8-7

We bought this water heater back in September and unfortunately have had to use it many days and nights since; especially in October. The water heater itself works great; however, if it is not cold, the water tends to heat up too much and can begin to evaporate. Furthermore, when the water is this hot, the chickens 🐓 prefer not to drink it. A solution to this problem was putting a metal dog 🐕 bowl 🍲 between the galvanized waterer and the heater which helps keep the water warm, but not hot to where it begins to be too hot for the chickens. It probably isn’t the best solution out there, but it works for us and our hens are happy 😃 .

James Gibbon

Once our water situation was under control, we began to worry about the warmth of our hens. Everything we read online said not to worry about heating up the coop, but as the temperatures got lower we began to get more and more concerned 😟 😳. Heat lamps are a big fire concern, but when there is snow everywhere, it is kind of hard to take this fire concern seriously 😐 - so we bought a heat lamp. We bought our heat lamp at our local farm and ranch supply store, but here is a link to the exact model we bought - https://www.amazon.com/Woods-Clamp-Lamp-Reflector-Guard/dp/B003XV8QOU/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=chicken+heat+lamp&qid=1572374147&sr=8-4.

Once we had the heat lamp we needed to install it in the coop. The only problem was we only had one electrical cord going from the house to the coop and ultimately had to make a decision as to which warming device was more valuable. We installed the heat lamp and decided the water heater was more valuable since it prevents the water from freezing. The nice thing about us installing the heat lamp though, is that we can easily switch the electricity from the waterer to the heat lamp.

James Gibbon

Finally, we lined the coop with a mixture of both soft shavings and straw. This gives the hens plenty to move around and nestle into when it gets cold. This coop has been a huge work in progress and I’m sure we will make some more adjustments as the winter progresses. Please feel free to leave a comment below and suggest what we should do next!

Until next time…

-JG