Advice Needed: Rehabbing a Chicken inside in the winter

Personally I would prioritize healing over reintegration if you are able to handle a house chicken until you get a break in temperatures to start trying ot reintegrate. After 3 weeks she'll be going in at the bottom of the pecking order and if she's not back to 100% she may get beat up depending on the temperment of your other birds.

You are also right to be cautious about the temperature disrepancy after a long indoor stay. Integration issues aside, it is possible for an adult chicken's metabolism to basically un-winterize due to a lengthy indoor stay, resulting in a bird that looks like it should be fine in freezing temperatures but is actually significantly more prone to hypothermia and frostbite. Birds that have had major physical stress of some kind will also be less able to handle cold. I have two such birds right now. They have issues shivering starting in the 20s right now while my other birds act like 0F is just a minor annoyance. There are degrees of shivering to watch out for as you re-aclimate a bird to colder temperatures. If it just feels like a cat purring when you place a hand on the chicken's back, it's probably ok. If the whole bird is shuddering, that's a hypothermia risk.

The way I'm trying to re-winterize my two house birds is through daytime exposure to not-too-bad but still colder temps when I get them. They are used to roughly the same indoor temps as yours and started getting some outdoor time when I had a couple lucky days with a highs in the 40sF, and rapidly(within 5 days-ish) were ok down to about 28F. However, they still struggle with 20sF. Although they'll be indoors on awful days coming up soon where it's something like a high of 15F and a low of 9F, after that I will be trying to use a brooder plate that can also be used as a coop heater in their enclosure to give them a way to warm up when needed and be away from it when they can tolerate the cooler temps. I used that method once before when I had late-in-the-year chicks that weren't quite ready for a nasty winter and it worked really well. If you can set up something like that for your girl once she's healed, that would be one way to get her reintegrating - but wind protection is essential, so you ight need all sides tarped to a degree rather than just two.
 
I just did this. Had my girl in the house for 4 nights, and took over 2 weeks to reintegrate her with the flock in a set up similar to what @AGeese shows above during the day (large pen, not just a crate) I was able to partition the coop off with chicken wire for night time.

It was NOT fun. She was my head hen and has dropped in rank to at least second (out of 4). It was much easier to integrate the 2 new girls we got in October. Her sister has been brutal to her to the point I regret bringing her inside.
YIKES! That's not what I wanted to hear. But this wound was so bad there was no avoiding bringing her in. Hoping I have an easier time with re-integrating her, fingers crossed!
 
Personally I would prioritize healing over reintegration if you are able to handle a house chicken until you get a break in temperatures to start trying ot reintegrate. After 3 weeks she'll be going in at the bottom of the pecking order and if she's not back to 100% she may get beat up depending on the temperment of your other birds.

You are also right to be cautious about the temperature disrepancy after a long indoor stay. Integration issues aside, it is possible for an adult chicken's metabolism to basically un-winterize due to a lengthy indoor stay, resulting in a bird that looks like it should be fine in freezing temperatures but is actually significantly more prone to hypothermia and frostbite. Birds that have had major physical stress of some kind will also be less able to handle cold. I have two such birds right now. They have issues shivering starting in the 20s right now while my other birds act like 0F is just a minor annoyance. There are degrees of shivering to watch out for as you re-aclimate a bird to colder temperatures. If it just feels like a cat purring when you place a hand on the chicken's back, it's probably ok. If the whole bird is shuddering, that's a hypothermia risk.

The way I'm trying to re-winterize my two house birds is through daytime exposure to not-too-bad but still colder temps when I get them. They are used to roughly the same indoor temps as yours and started getting some outdoor time when I had a couple lucky days with a highs in the 40sF, and rapidly(within 5 days-ish) were ok down to about 28F. However, they still struggle with 20sF. Although they'll be indoors on awful days coming up soon where it's something like a high of 15F and a low of 9F, after that I will be trying to use a brooder plate that can also be used as a coop heater in their enclosure to give them a way to warm up when needed and be away from it when they can tolerate the cooler temps. I used that method once before when I had late-in-the-year chicks that weren't quite ready for a nasty winter and it worked really well. If you can set up something like that for your girl once she's healed, that would be one way to get her reintegrating - but wind protection is essential, so you ight need all sides tarped to a degree rather than just two.
This is so helpful! THANK YOU.
 
I should add that the longer you wait to do this, the harder it will be to reintegrate. She needs to be seen as a member of the flock sooner than later.

Can you close off the portion under the coop with chicken wire and board/tarp it off on the other 3 sides for her?
That is a good idea, but I don't think she's ready to be outside with the temperatures getting really cold in the next week so I will have to wait until spring it sounds like. ALSO, just to clarify I have the same dog crate that @AGeese pictured above, it's huge!
 
Personally I would prioritize healing over reintegration if you are able to handle a house chicken until you get a break in temperatures to start trying ot reintegrate. After 3 weeks she'll be going in at the bottom of the pecking order and if she's not back to 100% she may get beat up depending on the temperment of your other birds.

You are also right to be cautious about the temperature disrepancy after a long indoor stay. Integration issues aside, it is possible for an adult chicken's metabolism to basically un-winterize due to a lengthy indoor stay, resulting in a bird that looks like it should be fine in freezing temperatures but is actually significantly more prone to hypothermia and frostbite. Birds that have had major physical stress of some kind will also be less able to handle cold. I have two such birds right now. They have issues shivering starting in the 20s right now while my other birds act like 0F is just a minor annoyance. There are degrees of shivering to watch out for as you re-aclimate a bird to colder temperatures. If it just feels like a cat purring when you place a hand on the chicken's back, it's probably ok. If the whole bird is shuddering, that's a hypothermia risk.

The way I'm trying to re-winterize my two house birds is through daytime exposure to not-too-bad but still colder temps when I get them. They are used to roughly the same indoor temps as yours and started getting some outdoor time when I had a couple lucky days with a highs in the 40sF, and rapidly(within 5 days-ish) were ok down to about 28F. However, they still struggle with 20sF. Although they'll be indoors on awful days coming up soon where it's something like a high of 15F and a low of 9F, after that I will be trying to use a brooder plate that can also be used as a coop heater in their enclosure to give them a way to warm up when needed and be away from it when they can tolerate the cooler temps. I used that method once before when I had late-in-the-year chicks that weren't quite ready for a nasty winter and it worked really well. If you can set up something like that for your girl once she's healed, that would be one way to get her reintegrating - but wind protection is essential, so you ight need all sides tarped to a degree rather than just two.
I found someone to board my chicken for the winter (YAY!) thank you for the advice. Now looking ahead, my next question is.... If I get her back in the spring and slowly integrate her into the flock will she re-acclimate to the outdoor weather for next winter season? She will be outside and naturally, the temperatures will fall each month, so I imagine her metabolism will return to rhythm. Either way I will have a very close eye on her for when the weather gets colder next winter. Thank you for your ideas on re-winterizing birds, appreciate all the knowledge you sent!
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom