Laying Hens and Comb Damage

We're still sick puppies up here...cough cough, blow blow....I made my way down to the barn this morning to check in on the hens.

We bring them down a 4 litre jug of Hot Water twice a day....and they gather around the bowls, drinking it down...

We've given up the shovelling of their run for now. Instead we just open the man door into the feed room area of the barn, and let them hang out in there during the day. The Wolf keeps an eye on them too!

The freezers we have offer them a bit of a sheltered spot....we just threw a bunch of hay down on the ground for them. Add a few handfuls of tossed scratch, and they seem to be happy. I fill up their feeder that is in their coop, and they just pop back in there when they want to eat or they hop up into the nesting boxes if they feel the urge to lay an egg....then we go back down around 4pm and close them back up in their coop.

They are still laying eggs, which is nice to see....not as many as in the fall, but these ones sure are bigger!

Here you can see some frost damage to this hen's comb. Poor thing....pretty hard to keep warm when it's lower than -30C out there! The temps have been warmer this last week, but now we hear another cold snap is waiting just around the corner.

As long as there is no blood on the combs, these hens should be just fine. If there were some blood, we'd clean it off and apply Vaseline to the area.

This hen is likely not laying right now - I would think she would be putting all her energy into getting her comb healed.

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