Seasonal Feeding: Summer Cooling and Winter Warming

Summer: focus on hydration and cooling. Frozen watermelon chunks, chilled cucumber, frozen berry ice blocks, and a shallow pan of cool water do more good than any 'cooling feed'. Skip heavy scratch grain in hot weather, corn is thermogenic. Shade over feeder and waterer keeps hens actually eating and drinking through the hottest hours. Winter: birds burn more calories keeping warm, so keep formulated feed available all day and give a small scratch or cracked corn snack an hour before roost, the extra grain ferments in the crop overnight and generates a bit of body heat. Warm oatmeal on a bitter morning is a well-loved treat (plain, no sugar, no milk in bulk). Sprouted grains (fodder) are a great fresh green in months when the pasture is dead. Keep water thawed, dehydration in cold kills more winter birds than the cold itself. Do not add heat lamps unless conditions are extreme, adult chickens handle 0 F fine with a dry, draft-free coop and a wide 2x4 roost.