Hand Feeding

Henrietta taking meal worms

Recently, Sheri called me all excited, because she had just gotten Henrietta to eat meal worms out of her hand.  None of the hens had ever done that before.  But, then again, we hadn't fed them meal worms before the weather started turning colder.  In an effort to help supplement their diet, since they can't scratch for bugs and such during the winter, we bought some dried meal worms.  We'll try other foods, such as table scraps as we have them, or cooked potatoes, or even hanging a cabbage for them to peck at, as we get time to do so.

Beulah

Beulah, on the other hand, would have no part of getting close enough for us to touch her.  She's always been much more stand-offish.  She'll come around when we're working in the garden, or in the back yard, but don't make a move towards touching her.  When we do catch her she clucks the entire time until we let her go again. She doesn't really seem to care much for meal worms, anyway.  They're really individual characters much like our cats.

Hens in run before being enclosed

I really suspect it's Henrietta that is laying the first egg each morning.  It just seems that Beulah goes into the nest box much later.  I don't know if that is part of the pecking order or not.  Of course, with only two hens there's not much of a pecking order.

Both hens seem to be quite content, though.  The temperatures are dipping into the single digits at night, but the enclosure seems to be doing a good job of keeping them protected from the weather.  The real test will come when the temps drop below zero for any length of time.

Winterizing

So, with the weather getting colder - and the first snow of the season already having happened - we've been doing a lot of reading on what to do to make a warmer environment for our two remaining hens (Henrietta and Beulah).

Makeshift heater

We've decided on a combination of things.  First, we wanted to address them being able to sleep in a warmer environment.  There was a chicken owner in Wisconsin who made a make-shift heater out of a light bulb socket mounted on a board with a clay pot attached over it.  We liked the idea for a couple of reasons:

1. The chickens wouldn't be exposed to the light bulb directly, chancing burning something - or worse, somehow starting a fire.  Many a chicken coop has burned down because of a light bulb.  
2. A 60-watt bulb is relatively inexpensive to keep on all the time, and heats the clay pot up sufficiently to give plenty of heat to the interior of the Cube. 

We cut off the outlet end of an inexpensive lamp extension cord to wire to the light socket.

Current setup

Next, we purchased some 6 mil clear, exterior plastic sheeting to attach to the run of the Cube.  We covered the entire front, door, and most of the sides.  We then stacked straw bales around the sides and back of the entire unit to block the wind, and provide insulation.

We purchased pine wood shavings from Tractor Supply to spread on the ground of the run.  We're not particularly partial to Tractor Supply, but it is what we have in our area for purchasing farm supplies.  An 8 cu ft. bag of pine shavings is around $5.00.  It covers the inside of the run nicely.  Our hope is that what we have done to enclose the run will keep it dry inside so we can rake the shavings out every couple of weeks.  That's how we'll clean and renew their run.

Water heater

We also purchased an Allied Precision bird bath de-icer for their Glug water container.  It's 250 watts at 120 volts, so it's just over 2 amps.  That won't be a big electrical draw, either.

Wired outlet & cords

We'll wire both devices to one of these thermostatically controlled outlets so they will only kick in if the temperatures fall below 35 degrees (f).  The water de-icer also has built-in thermostat controls.

Lastly, we're placing a bin containing soil so they can still take dust baths while enclosed in this setup.

Our hope is that the Cube will stay above freezing so the eggs won't freeze, as the hens have not both laid their eggs before everyone is gone from the house.  We have to collect them in the evening after returning home.  We'll keep updates on the progress as we test out this system.

With the run enclosed like it is, we can already tell it's warmer inside.  Granted, temps have not dipped much below freezing yet, but they will soon be here.

(12/6/11 updated with photos)