Chicken Keeping : A Snowy Day
Published on 2012-02-21 by Jenny
I got quite a few emails, tweets, IG questions yesterday about the chickens... How do they like the snow? How will they handle it? Do they eat it? And so on... So I thought you guys might like to see a few pictures I took yesterday of these kooky girls out in their first real snowfall.
So, as I mentioned, we got something like 7-8 inches, and it was too deep for me to just cut them loose... they would have been up to their chicken breasts in snow and we'd probably have a frozen chicken feet on our hands and that probably wouldn't be any good, right? But oh, what a boring day it would be to be stuck in the hen house all day, so I shoveled a path from their door into their back yard and shoveled away a big enough area for them to be on dirt and peck for bugs all day. Chickens that can peck for bugs all day are happy chickens.
Usually, they bust out of the door right away in the mornings as soon as
we come to let them out. Yesterday was different. They all stayed
inside the house, looking outside at all the snow, seeming a little
unsure about the whole thing. It was Sparrow, our fearless leader, who
decided to venture out to see just what this white stuff was all
about... and the rest soon followed. (ok, with a little gentle nudging from Henry and I)
There was a lot of huddling together, necks stretched, eyes about as wide open as possible. These girls were CURIOUS. A little hesitant but a whole lot curious. Pretty typical chicken behavior.
*note Butters and her poor scalp... the big mean Reds plucked her feathers right offa the tippy top of her head :(
After a little while, they all seemed to settle in like it was any other day. I think the snow brought a bit of drama and excitement to their Monday, actually. Every once in a while, I'd look out the kitchen window, and big chunks of snow would fall from the trees above and the chickens would scatter and run like they were under attack! I think they rather enjoyed all the mud, too. Lots of bugs to be found that way.
In other happy chicken news: we have a half dozen Americauna chicks on the way!!! I officially placed my order at the feed store last weekend... they should arrive around the first week of March. So excited!!!
I read somewhere recently that Chickens Are Addicting. I totally get that.
