Catching Some Infrared Rays

We are not having much luck catching many rays outside lately. It is so cold, Liam turned into a snowman!

I was worried that my hens and ducks might be on their way to experiencing a similar fate.  They are receiving no natural rays of any kind as they refuse to venture outside their coop.  I am still supplementing their day light in the mornings but this week I decided that it was time to get their heat lamp up and running.

A broken heat lamp is no good to anyone but with a pair of pliers and some elbow grease...voila!

My hens are now basking in the infrared rays of their new heat lamp.

I heat the coop during the really cold days mostly because I have a soft heart and I do not want my birds to be freezing.  I figure that if I am cold, they are cold.  Their combs are especially sensitive to very cold temperatures and can turn from red to black (permanently) if they get frostbitten.

I use a red coloured heat lamp not to mess up the hens' sleep patterns when it is left on at night; chickens do not perceive red light as daylight.

I also scatter scratch feed on the coop floor on the really cold nights to get the chickens to come down from their roosts and get moving.  Eating scratch helps the hens to generate body heat, warming both the coop and the individual birds as their bodies make energy from the additional calories.

Hopefully these precautions will save my hens from the unfortunate fate of becoming chicken snowmen as these outrageously cold temperatures persist for the next week or so.