People love to raise chickens for a variety of reasons. There are many online stores that offer an opportunity to buy live chickens for raising. If you are interested, you can also check out chickens for sale and bring you healthy birds.

Chickens are hardy birds and they have the ability to thrive at night, even during winter season. They know very well when they should go inside and seek warmth. Despite having so many impressive survival skills, chickens are still vulnerable to cold weather and require little help from their caretakers when the temperature drops during night.

As a chicken farmer, you can do the following things for keeping your birds warm and comfortable during night.

Make arrangements for good ventilation

Good ventilation and insulation is important for keeping your chickens warm during night. These birds have feathers which naturally keep them warm. But in order to survive the cold winter nights, they need some help from you. You can make arrangements for good ventilation and insulation.

Good insulation will keep the coop warm by keeping cold air at bay. Ventilation will allow moisture and ammonia (from the droppings) to flow out and fresh air to come in. You should install the vent near the roof of the coop so that cold air does not hit your birds directly.

Make good bedding inside the coop

Good bedding can enable your chickens to stay warm throughout the night. Some chicken farmers use the deep litter method. In this method, they allow chicken droppings to accumulate inside the coop along with the bedding. This creates a composing effect and generates natural heat during cold nights, especially during winters.

However, this method can be harmful for the health of the birds so it is better to avoid it. You can try out simpler bedding methods, such as replacing old bedding materials with fresh warm bedding materials. You can use materials like shredded paper, wooden shavings, ground corn cobs or straw.

Give extra feed to your chickens during night

In order to stay warm during the cold weather, chickens will naturally require more energy. This is the reason why you must give your chickens extra feed during cold nights. You can give your birds some extra cracked corn or other forms of nutritious feed so that they can derive more energy and stay warm after the sun goes down.

Make sure that the water does not freezes

Waters can freeze during the cold winter nights so it is your duty to prevent water from reaching the freezing temperature. You can install heated waterers for this purpose. It will keep the water warm and prevent it from freezing. 

Apply petroleum jelly on chickens

 Chickens can become victims of frostbite during cold winter nights even though they are quite hardy. In order to avoid such a situation and ensure the safety of your birds, you should apply petroleum jelly on the combs and wattles of these birds. In this way, your birds remain safe even during harsh cold weather.

Although chickens are hardy birds, they require a little bit of help in order to survive the cold night. You can follow the above mentioned steps for giving warmth and comfort to your feathered friends during the night.