A lot of you left comments asking, “Aren’t you cold?” So today, a little about winter in Hawaii.
Hawaii’s gentle winter
Hawaii doesn’t really have much of a winter. It sits very close to the equator. The earth spins on a tilt, but near the middle that hardly matters, so the difference between winter and summer, in temperature and in hours of daylight, is small. We don’t get snow or bitter cold like in Japan. I wear short sleeves all year, and the chickens don’t mind at all.
In winter the sun is fully down around 6 p.m.; in summer I think it’s around 8 p.m. About two hours’ difference — nothing like countries with dramatic seasons.
The temperature right now: 26.2°C (about 79°F). Comfortable, though in direct sun it’s as hot as summer. Our farm is a little higher up than where the coop used to be, so the nights get cooler and can drop below 20°C (68°F), which is rare for Hawaii. I like the cold, so I enjoy it. Since moving here, a lot of the birds have gotten extra fluffy, from better health or the cool nights. Look at Cho — so fluffy!
Feathers make the difference
This is Sumi, a Silkie. As I explained before with Star’s feathers, normal feathers have tiny fibers that work like a zipper, joining the strands into a smooth surface that keeps a chicken warm. Silkie feathers don’t have them, so they grow in this fluffy state, and Silkies are said to handle cold (and heat) less well than other chickens. Sumi doesn’t mind this weather, but snow would be too much.
Luna, on the other hand, is an Australorp. Her feathers are much denser than a normal chicken’s, so she can keep herself warm even in cold places. Her kind would be fine in snow — they’d probably eat it!
Both breeds were developed by people, at opposite ends. Hawaii’s ordinary wild chickens, like Nuts, sit in between: small, with normal feathers, they can handle about 15°C and stay healthy, but not much colder. In return, they’re tough in the heat. So what a chicken can handle depends on its type and its feathers.
A pause on chick rescues
Chicks, however, do badly with days that are too hot and nights that are too cold, and I felt our rescued chicks weren’t surviving as well as they should. Raising them inside the house wasn’t possible at the time, so, sadly, I decided to pause chick rescues for a while. For the adult chickens, though, it seems to be a very good environment.
So even in a Hawaiian winter, there are hot hours! See you next time.