It has been a long hard winter and the poultry is all anxious for Spring. I hope to start this section as I learn how it works to provide weekly updates on topics in poultry and gardening. Each week I will try to address seasonal issue for each topic. The first issue is dealing with the after effects of frozen combs in chickens and what impact it has.
As a general rule when a rooster freezes his comb he is not very fertile for a period of time that it takes him to regrow the lost tissue and have it heal over. Tall single combed Mediterranean class breeds sometimes will be out of commission reproductive wise for a month or more. So,for those setting eggs after a long cold spell do not expect high fertility on those early hatches.
The poor old fellow below was in peak breeding comb prior to the start of our long 6 weeks of hard winter. He was subjected to a week of subzero days some as cold as -36˚F. Some breeds recover faster than others. I have chosen to show this one as it is the extreme, his big single comb will be "dubbed" and he will take awhile yet to regain his strength. Best bet is to add lots of vitamins and electrolytes to speed up recovery.
