Chickens in the Cold

You're right, they really are well insulated. Some time ago I found this copy of a thermal image of a hen (it may well have been from this site):

Thank you thats a really interesting and reassuring post.
Must admit i was watching my girls last week expecting them to be huddling together for warmth, but they were totally happy wandering round in the snow, even poor Esmerelda who is having a partial moult.

after culling all my boys I have just 8 tree dwellers now, all doing fine 

I found one of my hens up a ladder this morning... covered in snow.

She seemed perfectly content, and was happy enough to come down for breakfast when I put it out!

(becasue of the ultra cold weather at the moment, I bring all food and water into the hose on an evening, and take it back out in the morning)

I've stopped worrying about our girls and the cold and snow.
With the first lot of snow we had here after we had the girls I was so worried about them that I woman handled a bale of straw and scrabbled on my hands and knees making them a straw cave under the egglu cube so they would be out of the wind.

I also cooked some jacket potatoes and gave them warm to the girls. I had hardly replaced the electric fence lead and saw that they were having a whale of a time pulling out all the straw and shooshing it all over the place.

They then turned their beaks up at the warm spuds and waited for them to go stone cold before they ate them.

SO there I was freezing cold, snow melting down the back of my neck to no real use at all.
So I too, turned my beak up and told them to get on with it and went into the warm for a hot shower and hot chocolate.    These days they get  left to get on with it! Just check the water regularly.