Winter Wonderland
Like most of the pacific northwest, the recent cold front surge gave us a welcomed amount of snow and cold. Thankfully, it’s not unbearable and is manageable, giving us all the beauty of a winter wonderland here in Oregon. Prepping ahead of time, we made sure that barns, coops and sheds had adequate protection from the weather, the ability for animals to snuggle in close with each other to stay warm where applicable, and plenty of feed calories available.
Prepping the Cows
The most important part for the cows is a dry place for them to bed down and enough forage for them to keep burning calories to stay warm. In order to make sure they were ready, we brought another ton of hay down to the barn to last them through the cold front. I actually doubled their hay intake during this cold weather, spacing it out throughout the day to make sure that they were eating enough and that neither an old cow or a small heifer got pushed out. Additionally, we added more dry bedding under the shed for them to bed down.
Prepping the Chickens
For the most part, our coops are all new enough that there wasn’t much for me to worry about in regards to the coops. I am prepared to run power into them with heat lamps but, outside of maybe one day, I don’t think I need to worry about the chickens. With that being said, however, I am going to keep a close eye on them.
Typically, cold weather will result in less egg-laying for the chickens. If this is something that concerns you or if you just want to boost their calories to help them stay warm, you can either ferment feed for them or soak their feed in milk prior to feeding them. I will do this as a supplement with a mason jar per 6 chickens on the coldest days. I try to keep in minimal, depending on the weather, because I don’t want the food to freeze before they can get to it, so I always take away any leftover food at night and then give them this treat first. You can see in the below video that during February this year I used fermented feed which directly resulted in increased egg production during the cold snap at the end of last winter.
Prepping Horses
Seeing as how they re in stalls, the horses are the most out of the elements and outside of blanketing and feeding them extra hay, at this point there isn’t much extra I need to do. I allow my horses to build up a winter coat, only adding blankets when weather surges like it is doing this week.