How to Optimize Poultry Feeding During Cold and Hot Weather

Temperature is one of the most powerful – and often underestimated – forces shaping poultry productivity. Whether it drops below 5°C in winter or climbs above 30°C in summer, birds feel it in ways that directly affect how much they eat, how well they grow, and how efficiently they produce eggs. The good news is that targeted nutritional adjustments can offset much of this impact. Here’s a practical breakdown of how to manage poultry feeding across both weather extremes.

Why extreme temperatures demand a feeding response 🔗

Poultry are homeothermic animals – they maintain a constant internal body temperature regardless of their environment. This regulation costs energy, and that cost climbs steeply in extreme weather. Broilers and laying hens perform best within a relatively narrow thermal range of 18-22°C. Outside this zone, the bird’s physiology shifts, and if feeding strategies don’t shift with it, production suffers.

Feeding poultry in cold weather 🔗

Cold weather raises the energy cost of simply staying alive. Birds must expend considerably more energy to stay warm in winter, which means they will naturally eat more feed. This increased appetite is the body’s first line of defense, and the farm’s feeding program should support – not restrict – it.

Increasing energy and caloric intake 🔗

Plan to offer birds roughly 1.5 times their normal feed intake during cold months, since digestion itself generates body heat and helps birds get through cold nights. Beyond volume, the composition of the diet matters. Incorporating high-carbohydrate grains – particularly corn – in the evening hours is a well-established strategy to keep the bird’s metabolism running at a higher rate overnight and raise body temperature. However, this should be offered as a supplement, not as a replacement for a complete, balanced ration.

Fats are another high-value energy source in cold weather diets. Fats provide more than twice the energy per gram compared to carbohydrates, though they should not be increased in large amounts since high-quality protein sources already contain moderate fat and also produce internal heat during digestion – something fat alone does not do. Whole grains such as wheat, barley, or oats are also valuable in winter, providing slow-burning energy that keeps metabolism active through cold nights.

Protein requirements in cold conditions 🔗

Additional protein in winter supports daily egg production, feather growth for insulation, and adaptation to the cold environment. Layer feeds typically contain 16-18% protein, which is sufficient for most flocks, but in very cold climates a slight boost may be warranted using high-quality supplemental sources like mealworms or fish meal.

Vitamins, minerals, and water in winter 🔗

Cold temperatures can suppress circulation and immune function in birds, as metabolic energy is redirected toward thermoregulation. Supplements that support circulation and immune function – such as vitamin E, selenium, and B vitamins – are particularly useful during cold stress periods. Water management is equally critical: chickens consume roughly two pounds of water for every pound of feed, making uninterrupted access to fresh, unfrozen water essential for digestion, egg production, and temperature regulation. If water freezes and birds become thirsty, feed intake drops – precisely when it needs to be at its highest.

Feeding frequency and timing 🔗

Offering feed first thing in the morning and again in the late afternoon or evening ensures birds have adequate energy throughout the day and night. During winter, daylight is shorter, which naturally limits the time birds have to feed, so multiple daily offerings help compensate for this constraint.

Feeding poultry in hot weather 🔗

Hot weather creates the opposite problem. The single most important factor affecting performance under high temperatures is reduced feed intake, and high temperature combined with high humidity makes this worse. Under heat stress, feed intake is depressed while water intake increases substantially – birds shift their priority from eating to cooling down. The nutritional challenge, therefore, is maintaining adequate nutrient delivery to the bird even as the total volume of feed consumed falls.

Heat stress and its effects on layers and broilers 🔗

High ambient temperatures beyond the thermoneutral zone badly affect meat production, meat quality, and cause immune problems in broiler flocks, with reduced feed intake serving as the bird’s adaptive mechanism to minimize metabolic heat production. For laying hens, the picture is equally concerning. Heat stress negatively impacts the production performance of layer hens by decreasing both egg production and egg quality. Eggshell thickness, egg weight, and Haugh unit scores all decline when birds are chronically heat-stressed. Broilers not only eat less at high temperatures but also gain less per unit of intake, especially above 30°C, compounding the economic impact on the producer.

Adjusting diet composition and nutrient density 🔗

Since birds eat less in the heat, the standard response is to increase the concentration of nutrients in every gram of feed they do consume. Feed a more nutrient-dense diet to compensate for reduced feed intake, and supplement diets with highly digestible ingredients ensuring a balanced amino acid, vitamin, and mineral profile.

Replacing a portion of dietary protein and carbohydrates with fat is a widely recommended strategy in hot climates. Fat and oils have high energy value and a lower heat increment than protein or carbohydrates, meaning the bird produces less metabolic heat when digesting fat-rich diets – directly reducing the bird’s thermal burden. Research has shown that feed supplemented with 5% fat and low protein content can improve broiler production performance under heat stress by lowering feed retention and improving overall energy efficiency.

Timing of feeding during hot weather 🔗

Birds should not be fed during the afternoon in periods of hot weather, as this increases the body heat they must dissipate and raises the risk of heat exhaustion. Instead, feeding should be concentrated in the early morning and late evening when ambient temperatures are lower. Withdrawing feed before the morning activity peak – at least six hours before peak heat is expected – and reintroducing it once temperatures begin to decline reduces the metabolic heat generated during active digestion.

Feed restriction during hotter periods of the day has been shown to reduce rectal temperature and minimize mortality in heat-stressed broilers. However, this practice needs careful management, as prolonged feed restriction depresses growth rate and delays market age.

Wet feeding as a strategy 🔗

Wet feeding – mixing feed with water at a ratio of 1:1 – is considerably more beneficial than dry feed under heat stress conditions, since birds often fail to consume sufficient quantities of dry mash or pellets when temperatures are high. For laying hens, wet feeding during high temperatures has been shown to increase dry matter intake, egg weight, and egg production. The main caution with wet feeding is the risk of fungal growth in unused feed, so strict hygiene and small batch preparation are essential.

Vitamin and mineral supplementation in hot weather 🔗

Heat stress directly depletes several key vitamins and minerals in the bird’s body, making supplementation a front-line management tool. Vitamins A, C, D, and E alongside minerals including selenium, zinc, potassium, sodium, and chromium have been shown to boost thermotolerance, support growth, and improve feed efficiency in heat-stressed birds.

Vitamin C 🔗

Vitamin C is naturally synthesized in the kidneys of poultry, but its production decreases significantly under excessive heat, making dietary supplementation necessary. It plays a role in calcium metabolism, eggshell calcification, and immune function. Supplementation of vitamin C at 250 mg/kg of feed improved growth rate, nutrient utilization, egg production and quality, immune response, and antioxidant status in heat-stressed birds.

Vitamin E and selenium 🔗

Vitamin E helps improve egg production in heat-stressed layers by preventing liver damage and facilitating the synthesis and release of vitellogenin – the key egg yolk protein. Diets containing vitamin E at 150-500 mg/kg of feed, combined with selenium at 0.1-1 mg/kg and vitamin C at 150-500 mg/kg, can reduce free radical production, support enzyme activity, and prevent lipid peroxidation – and these antioxidants are more effective when applied in combination than separately.

Electrolytes 🔗

Panting – the primary cooling mechanism in poultry – causes birds to exhale excessive carbon dioxide, which elevates blood pH and triggers the kidneys to excrete electrolytes like potassium, sodium, and magnesium. Adding vitamins and electrolytes to drinking water compensates for nutrients lost due to reduced feed intake and panting-induced electrolyte loss – and electrolyte supplementation should ideally begin before the onset of peak heat stress. Research has confirmed that a combined water treatment of electrolytes and vitamin C can improve growth performance in heat-stressed broilers, with higher doses producing better results.

Water: the most critical input in hot weather 🔗

Birds in hot environments increase water intake by two to four times under heat stress, and cool drinking water not only prevents dehydration but also helps reduce the bird’s body temperature. Water lines, drinkers, and storage tanks should be checked regularly to ensure water temperature stays below 30°C. Restricted or warm water access during a heat event can rapidly accelerate mortality, especially in heavier broilers.

A quick comparison: cold vs. hot weather feeding priorities 🔗

In cold weather, the primary goal is to increase total energy and caloric intake – more feed, more frequent feeding, more energy-dense ingredients. In hot weather, the goal shifts: total feed volume decreases involuntarily, so the response is to increase nutrient concentration per unit of feed, shift feeding to cooler hours, supplement vitamins and electrolytes through water, and reduce the heat burden of digestion by using fat-rich, lower-protein formulations. Both strategies are ultimately about ensuring the bird receives enough of the right nutrients to maintain production despite external thermal pressure.

What do you think? Given that heat stress is projected to intensify with rising global temperatures, do you think current nutritional strategies are sufficient on their own – or should poultry producers prioritize housing and breed selection equally? And in mixed climates that see both cold winters and hot summers, how should a farm balance its feed formulation strategy across the year?

References

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