Sally, our lone survivor of the Great Chicken Massacre of May 2021, is a feisty hen. While Sven is at the top of my flock’s pecking order, I’d bet money that Sally is the top hen. I’ve seen her peck at the younger hens when they wanted to roost next to her at night or chase them away if they have a little morsel of treat that she wants for herself. Last year, she went broody in early spring, but we weren’t ready to add peeps to our flock. When I kicked her off her eggs every day to collect them, she would aggressively peck at me. This occurred every day for over 3 weeks until she finally gave up. She went broody two more times during the spring and summer before we finally agreed to let her hatch those eggs.

Since my chickens are somewhat famous, I frequently get asked, “Julie, what’s going on with your chickens?” Typically, I smile and say they are doing great.

However, last fall, when my chickens weren’t laying, I was frustrated. I was doing all the hard work and not getting the rewards for my effort. During this egg-laying drought, when people would ask me, “how are your chickens?” I’d respond with a sigh and say, “They are fine.”

I am always energized by the winter solstice. Yes, it marks the time that our daylight starts to increase. But even more exciting for me is that it is around the time when my pullets start laying eggs. Since hens need about 15 hours of daylight in order to lay eggs, egg production will drop off in the fall/winter. However, once pullets (hens less than 1 year of age) reach about 20 weeks of age, they will lay through the winter.

Once early December arrives, I live in anticipation of finding an egg in the nesting box. Every morning I go up and eagerly peek into the box hoping to find an egg. And this year, I have been disappointed every day past winter solstice and Christmas. My hens looked healthy, they were eating and drinking, walking around the chicken run. But they were not laying eggs.

The fall weather is upon us. The days are getting shorter and nights are getting cooler. Since chickens can’t see well in the dark, they start heading to bed much earlier and sleeping in much later. Even Sven, our sweet rooster, delays his crowing until about 5:30 in the morning (a nice change from the 3:30 AM start in the peak of summer). Hens need about 15 hours of daylight to lay an egg, so unless I add light to their coop, this also means that my egg production is on the decline. The good news is that I do have some pullets (hens that are less than a year old), and once they start laying, they will lay throughout the winter (oh, the joys of being young). So in the next few months, egg production will start to increase again.

However, the biggest challenge for this time of the year is making sure the chickens are prepared for winter. They need enough warmth in the coop during those cold spells we tend to get in the Pacific Northwest. (I know, it’s nothing like the insane winter temperatures the Midwest experiences.)

After erecting a chicken coop we inherited from a professional structural engineer, I was so excited. This coop is built so well and is perfect for three hens who have the opportunity to free range. But as you know, free ranging is not a viable option when you also have two well-trained hunting dogs. So I stared at this beautiful coop and thought, what are we going to do with it?

And then I had this moment of clarity. We could add siding to the coop, turning the entire structure into the coop, and then build onto it with a fence that allowed the chickens to roam around outside. I hurried back to the house to share my moment of brilliance with my husband. Who, as I found out, was way ahead of me on that thought.

Perfect: we were aligned on the vision. Now we could get to work. I started looking for siding and getting ready to make this vision a reality. Of course, as often happens, he wasn’t too keen on this idea…yet.