Keeping livestock over winter - Tips and advice

[Britesea]

Our chickens are breeds that do well in cold weather, so the only change we did was to put some tarps over their windows to block the wind, and I take a bucket of hot water out as needed- usually only once a day in our normal winter temps.

 

[NH Homesteader]

I think I'm going to try soaking beet pulp in hot water for the goats this year. They (other than the buck, lol) should all be pregnant and they do get free choice hay but some mornings they just look pathetic and I feel bad for their spoiled selves, lol!

I give everyone fresh warm water 3x/day (when I'm able to, hasn't happened regularly this year but they do get it 2x/day every day).

Other than that, it's just extra bedding and extra feed. I add corn to the chicken feed. Turkeys won't eat it. The pig gets a bale of hay to burrow into.

 

[Denim Deb]

For the horses, I have a heater for my stock tank. There's an automatic waterer in their field, but it's not set right, so it freezes solid. I'll be redoing it come spring.

For the goat, I use to have the heated water bucket. But they only lasted about 2 years, and they're expensive! So, I just add a bit of unfrozen water 2x a day. If the bucket gets completely filled w/ice, I'll put in another bucket.

For the chickens, I have the black, flexible bowls. I turn them over when they're frozen and step on them to break the ice out. And since they would step on the bowl and dump it right after I filled it, I took some 2x3 scraps and made a frame for the bowl to sit in.

For the rabbit, I found that some of the containers you get from restaurants fit in her water bowl. So, I'll just take one out when it freezes, and put another one in. Then, I stick the one that's frozen in the sun so it can thaw out.

 

[Beekissed]

I dig out the heated dog bowl for the chickens and the heated bucket for the dogs. Not sure where you are buying yours,@Denim Deb , but my first one lasted 11 yrs and I've had the current one for two going on three yrs.

I change my summer shade tarp out for my winter clear tarp, which lets in the light and the warmth of the winter sun.

I place a tarp around the spare pen so I can store leaves and hay in there without the rain blowing in on it.

I gather bags and bags of leaves in town to store for bedding, buy some square bales of old hay~if I don't have them stored already~ to use for insulating the dogs shelters/lounge areas.

I clean out dog houses of old hay and cedar chips and put down some permethrin powder on the wood, put down fresh cedar chips if I have them, then fresh hay deep and plentiful. Plenty along the sides too so that it insulates a sleeping dog.

I build my DL all spring and summer under the roosts, with the final greens piled on when I clean out the garden in the fall, then start laying down a little hay, then leaves on top of that. That compost pile under the roosts is kept moist on the inside throughout winter so that it composts, generating heat for the chickens roosting above. Each morning I flip dry bedding from elsewhere in the coop on top of the night's droppings, sealing their moisture and nitrogen into the mass.

I check the flock for any external parasites, then I apply castor oil to feet and legs, combs and wattles. I dust the roosts down with permethrin powder, remove all the hay in the nest boxes and lay down some permethrin powder there and then put in a lot of fresh hay on top of that.

The hay in my nest boxes is generally 6-8 in. deep with plenty curled up along the sides as well, for even more insulation of those eggs. I don't get any frozen eggs, even in teens below zero, unless I would forget to collect them...even then, only a few will be frozen in those temps, even left over night. The hay, the thick wood of the laying boxes, the warmth of the DL...I think all of these things coincide in keeping eggs from freezing.

I move my feed can and my fermented feed bucket(s) down to the house. I keep the fermented feed in the mud room/pantry to keep it from going dormant or freezing altogether. That room is unheated but I leave the door cracked a little so that it gets a little heat from the house.

Then it's just about carrying water to keep the waterers freshened, collecting eggs, feeding.

 

[Denim Deb]

Bee, I got them in TSC.

 

[baymule]

I've seen those before. And I've also seen the mess a real smart, real bored horse can make by pushing down on the paddle and letting it over flow. They are always a step ahead of us.......

 

[treerooted]

I only have chickens, and like Britesea I got birds that would be able to withstand the cold. Even with the -40 temps (not in their coop mind you because there's no wind) they're doing fine.
I use a heated dog bowl because I wouldn't be able to keep up with the freezing otherwise.

I don't do anything else, but I'm taking in the various tips and may implement some myself.

 

[YoteMeadows]

We do the standard extra hay since that digesting it is what produces heat for horses. Our horses are part dessert rats and are very fuel efficient, so they don't get grain. They have access to a shelter and a round bale 24/7. Chickens and ducks get their boxes and coops stuffed full of hay and or straw. As far as water...well, we don't have any heated buckets, so it is breaking ice, pulling ice chunks out, and re-filling with water twice a day. We clean the coops out once a week and reload, dumping all the old dirty stuff into a compost pile.