Many people are quite surprised to learn that I do not provide any form of heat for my Jacobins in our sometimes harsh western Canadian winters. However there are some challenges to keeping Jacobins in sub-zero temperatures for around 5 months of the year.
While the temperatures in Manitoba flucuate considerably in spring and fall, you can count on the later part of December, January, Febuary and much of March to be quite servere with temperatures sometimes dropping to -40 C or 40 below Fahrenheit. This is very hard on the Jacobins as well as any other animals or people exposed to the elements.
Most importantly your birds must be healthy going into the winter. Sick or thin birds cannot withstand very cold temperatures for any length of time. Your birds must carry extra fat cover in order to help them keep warm. Towards the end of the moult, in late November, I start to increase the amount of corn in the feed and I ad a small amount of oil seed such as crushed peanuts, sunflower or canola to help the birds put on more fat cover.
My lofts are all cleaned out and a thick layer of wood shavings is placed on the floors of my lofts. Since most of my Jacobins stay on the floor or in the nest boxes for the winter the wood chips provide good insulation for the Jacobins to rest in to retain body heat.
During the moult and leading up to the show season the birds are kept spread out to allow for less fighting and better conditioning. Immediately following the show season I place more of my Jacobins together in smaller areas in insulated buildings. The body heat the birds produce along with sunlight during the day is the only heat that helps to keep the building warm. It is ussually about 10 degrees warmer than outside. The temperature during the winter months inside the lofts almost always remains below the freezing mark even during the day. The building is sealed up to prevent drafts, however I always make sure there is a vent open to provide fresh air. Plenty of windows are very important because even when it is 30 below the sunshine during our short days helps to give my Jacobins more energy. On our shortest days we have about eight hours of sunlight. This means my birds are in darkness for 16 hours of each day.
Their metabolism changes and they eat a great deal just to stay warm. They show absolutely no interest in breeding and once they have eaten they ussually just return to their own space and stay quiet and still to conserve energy and body heat. I make sure that they have feed in front of them at all times. I provide warm water twice a day. Often when I water the birds in the morning it will be frozen solid in hours. I use plastic javex containers which have been rinsed out with a hole cut in the side for watering containers. I can then bang it against a hard smooth surface to break the ice and give fresh warm water. If the container splits or punctures I always have lots of spare ones ready to use and they don’t cost anything. Make sure your Jacobins cannot get in their drinking containers and try to bath. If they get wet they may freeze to death.
You must inspect your birds each morning to make sure that their droppings have not frozen to the feathers around their vent overnight as the bird has remained in one spot. If this happens the bird can no longer pass it’s droppings and will become sick and die within a couple of days. Just pull the lump of frozen droppings off of the bird along with the feathers when this happens being careful not to tear any skin and the bird will be ok. Trimming the longer feathers around the vent can help to prevent this problem.
Make sure the feathers around the Jacobins face and hood are not covered in ice preventing the Jacobin from seeing to eat and drink. This happens when the moisture from the birds breath collects on the feathers and freezes. This only happens when it gets very cold. I will then place the birds that are iced up in a box in a heated building for an hour or so until they thaw out and are dry. Often if the sun comes out the Jacobins will thaw out just from their own body heat during the day.
You may find that long feathered Jacobins who have blood feathers in very cold weather will have their blood feathers damaged by frost and will not finish their moult very well. I have also noticed that even well finished feathers will deteriorate somewhat in sub-zero weather over time.
You will find it is harder to view your Jacobins in the cold weather because not only are you not comfortable but because they will normally not hold their feathers up tightly until they are warmed up. It is amazing how well the feathers insulate the bird from the cold. I never handle my birds with gloves or mitts( in case you are now wondering, we have to wear leather mitts with wool liners when it is really cold here because when your fingers are seperated your hands cannot stay warm, so your hands would freeze in gloves). When I handle my birds in cold weather with bare hands my hands become ice cold from the touch of the feathers yet the birds are completely comfortable.
There are some advantages to the cold weather and our Jacobins. Firstly the cool weather in September through November leading up to the very cold months gives our birds a beautiful feather quality which cannot be attained as easily in warmer climates.
In cold weather droppings freeze almost instantly into mardles which are easily raked up and disposed of. Due to any and all moisture freezing the Jacobins stay very clean and do not get stained or dirty.
Deseases and parasites do not spread easily in the sub-zero weather and as a result the birds in winter remain very healthy. Worms in pigeons are not a problem here.
I guess every part of the world offers its own challenges to breeding Jacobins. A friend in the U.S. told me snakes ate many of her young birds. Another said pigeon flies were a problem. Well let me tell you snakes and pigeon flies do not survive when it is 30 below. Its nice not to have any insects or reptiles of any kind for six months of the year. The snakes we do have in summer are small and harmless.
All each of us can do is to make the best of our own situation and enjoy our birds in whatever way we can.
Yours in the fancy,
Clint Robertson, Email:clint@jacobins.ca
