A little more than a week has passed since the beginning of December and now winter has come to our region. It has
been snowing continuously for several days.
Everything was covered with a white haze. Usually winter comes to us much later, but apparently this year was an exception.
Just yesterday I was reading notes about how other homesteaders are removing snow and now I regularly use a shovel myself for several days in a row. My driveway is quite long - about 100 meters, so I have to tinker.
I also had to modify the rafters on the roof of the porch a little. They turned out to be a little short because of the lack of material and during heavy snowfalls, the polycarbonate on the roof began to bend noticeably. To fix this, I simply increased the rafters by screwing 30 centimeter lengths of boards to them. Now nothing bends.
In addition, I continue to prepare firewood for the next year. As I said in the last post, electricians sawed a lot of trees right behind my fence. My task is to file it all for firewood, split them with an axe and store them until next winter.
That's what I'm doing.
The question of building a winter insulated chicken coop arose again, so that the chickens could feel comfortable and lay eggs all year round. But I would not like to build another temporary structure in a greenhouse, as I did in previous years. I want to build something more serious.
So on long winter evenings I'll sit and figure out how to do it with the least cost.
Ummm, not sure a winterized coop will keep them laying. Laying is determined by daylight length and when it drops under 14 hours laying tapers off. If you want them to lay through the winter, they need 2 things. First, a continuous source of not too cold water. Without constant water, they cannot digest their food. Without sufficient nutrition, laying will be poor.
Secondly, they must have light. A 60 watt bulb not higher than 10’ above where they spend the most time, on a timer for 16 hrs of light. Ideal is adding hours before dawn and after dusk, but I found getting them in the coop was hard when the light was on at night. If the light is on early in the morning, it is crucial they have food and water during that time. Often chores are not done until much later.
Just a couple facts to think about...
Thanks for the advice. I used to do this when I was building temporary chicken coops in a greenhouse, this year I wanted to abandon the temporary winter chicken coop to build a new and large one, but I didn't have time, so I'll have to do a temporary winter one with lighting and heating again
Yay! 🤗
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