First winter with my girls! Please help!

[11mini]

I originally had just dirt for the run and I was adding/removing dirt every few weeks. After a short while the ground smelled awful like rotten chicken poop. That's when I added the plywood floor and pine shavings. Smells better and is cleaner but trying to keep it dry is the problem. Covering the whole run with plastic may be the way to go.

 

[jnewsom]

We humans always think "dang, it's cold, my chickens must be cold, too!" ... NOT! Chickens are hardy even when temps reach -20 amazingly. I personally am not going to heat my coop...too much risk of fire and they just don't need it. Heat lamp did this...12 chicks and 8 hens were lost. What they DO need is good ventilation and no moisture. I live just across from you in Central Oregon and our dead of winter temps hover around zero to -10 for a period of 3-4 weeks...yikes! But my girls will be just fine I'm sure. Like you, I've got a fairly deep bed of pine wood shavings on the floor of my coop and will add-to as the winter progresses.

Don't heat, don't insulate. Just keep them dry, ventilated, and out of the wind. People in *very* cold climates keep chickens in coops where the entire front side is open, the side away from the prevailing wind.

Thank you guys for the help! Theres so much info out there you really helped clear it up and keep it simple. I think we'll add a section of roofing and wrap some of the coop and run with a good plastic! im glad to hear I dont need heat that was a big worry of mine because of the chance of a fire. Again thank you guys!

 

[iwiw60]

Thank you guys for the help! Theres so much info out there you really helped clear it up and keep it simple. I think we'll add a section of roofing and wrap some of the coop and run with a good plastic! im glad to hear I dont need heat that was a big worry of mine because of the chance of a fire. Again thank you guys!

On the plastic sheeting...helpful hint: make sure you buy only 6-mil clear plastic sheeting not 4-mil or lower because it will just get torn to shreds in winter storms and wind. Use furring strips (lathe) they are cheap and attach your plastic with the strips, makes it much stronger.

 

[jnewsom]

On the plastic sheeting...helpful hint: make sure you buy only 6-mil clear plastic sheeting not 4-mil or lower because it will just get torn to shreds in winter storms and wind. Use furring strips (lathe) they are cheap and attach your plastic with the strips, makes it much stronger.

Thank you so much for the tips!

 

[Pip4Chirp]

If anyone's still on this thread, I could really use your input. My coop is very much like "jnewsom" and I have 3 chickens (lost one to prolapse a few weeks ago) and it's our first winter together. My climate is a little colder (Boulder, CO) - avg high temp in the 30's in winter with lows in the teens but we'll have a few days and nights of single digits or even negative digits. It would be really rare to have temps in the negative teens.

My coop was just plywood and hardware fabric (small coop sold at Home depot or Jax) but my dad helped me insulate it with sandwich boards of siding, R13 insulation and plywood. I'll tarp the run (or part of it) to keep the wind and snow away and add extra straw inside the coop and around the sides. But will this be warm enough? There is no way I can have a warming light - it would be so unsafe. I've thought about heating rocks and putting them in at night.

Does anyone have any experience with my climate and a very small coop?

I'm confident the chickens will be warm enough to about 10 or 20 degrees outside but not sure about the super cold temps. Also, do you let your chickens run around outside when it's below freezing?

 

[iwiw60]

Your girls should be fine even down to -20 .... I do not heat my coop. The important thing to remember is that they have good ventilation, NO drafts. If you see condensation on your coop windows or wall it is too "tight" in there...open one of your windows just a crack to alleviate that. I live in snow country, too, but I don't heat my coop either...this weekend I'm starting to wrap my chicken run with 6-mil plastic sheeting, leaving about 6-10" at the top open for ventilation.

Make sure your roost bar is a 2 x 4 laying flat so your girls can lay on their feet...helps keep them warmer.

Best of luck to you!!

 

[MelissaZeno]

Great help thank you. Good information!

 

[21hens-incharge]

If anyone's still on this thread, I could really use your input. My coop is very much like "jnewsom" and I have 3 chickens (lost one to prolapse a few weeks ago) and it's our first winter together. My climate is a little colder (Boulder, CO) - avg high temp in the 30's in winter with lows in the teens but we'll have a few days and nights of single digits or even negative digits. It would be really rare to have temps in the negative teens.

My coop was just plywood and hardware fabric (small coop sold at Home depot or Jax) but my dad helped me insulate it with sandwich boards of siding, R13 insulation and plywood. I'll tarp the run (or part of it) to keep the wind and snow away and add extra straw inside the coop and around the sides. But will this be warm enough? There is no way I can have a warming light - it would be so unsafe. I've thought about heating rocks and putting them in at night.

Does anyone have any experience with my climate and a very small coop?

I'm confident the chickens will be warm enough to about 10 or 20 degrees outside but not sure about the super cold temps. Also, do you let your chickens run around outside when it's below freezing?

I am just north of you in Loveland.
I have a mini coop that is raised as well. Mine is about 4x4 and 18 inches off the ground. I have vents at the eaves on the roof that stay open all year on the south side and get closed on the north. I have had chickens in it for the last 2 winters and they have been just fine.
DH put a radiant heater in the coop but they were staying as far away from it as they could get so I turned it off.

I am thinking a lot depends on what breeds of chickens you have.

Mine are all big gals in the tiny coop. Big gals with big combs. No frost bite here or toe issues. I am thinking the ventilation helped prevent that.
In my coop are a Delaware, a California white and an Austrolorp.

Fresh air (ventilation) and thawed water are key.
Awesome info here on vent verses draft and winter with chickens.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/...-go-out-there-and-cut-more-holes-in-your-coop

Best wishes,

Babs

 

[Blooie]

I have no insulation in my coop. I also have no heat source in there aside from what Mother Nature provided them with - amply! Lots of down, lots of feathers. What kind of coats do we love in winter? Yep.

I second the 2x4 laid flat for roosting so they can sit on their feet. You're right, I'd be concerned about the amount of moisture from blowing rain and/or snow, so wrapping is a good idea - just don't make it airtight. Humidity and drafts are harmful to our chickens, but cold isn't. I'm in Northern Wyoming not far from Yellowstone, so we see waaayyy cold weather. The day I picked my chicks up from the post office it was 19 below zero, and had been well below zero for a couple of weeks. You have chosen some pretty winter hardy breeds, too.

I'm using the deep litter method in my coop - grass clippings, leaves, weeds from the garden and pine shavings - and on chilly days I have to laugh at all the holes dug into it....holes in the shapes of chicken bodies! They dig down and then snuggle. I have 3 working windows, an exhaust fan, two vents near the ceiling in addition to a big gable vent, and a long skinny vent in the north wall, plus a floor vent on the west directly opposite the always open pop door. This ventilation is divided up between all four walls, which means that I can shut down the openings on whichever side the wind is howling from to prevent direct drafts.

In April I put my 5.5 week old chicks out in the coop before it was finished, and started with a heat lamp. After the second night of them not even going over to that area but huddling together instead in front of the pop door, I took the lamp out. That night it snowed, and it snowed many times after that as well. In fact, we saw our last snowfall on June 6th. They are fine, hale and hardy and now as the nights are getting colder again (we've already had snow in the area once) their feathers are getting denser.

One other critical thing to take into account is that if your chickens are used to a warm (relatively speaking) coop what will you do when the power goes out and they aren't used to the real temps out there? It's far easier on them to gradually get used to the temperatures dropping than it is to have them living in a constant temperature and then suddenly and dramatically losing that heat.

There's a very smart man on BYC whose avatar is a photo of his coop...his totally OPEN in the front coop with no walls, just hardware cloth.....and you can see his chickens happily poking around in their coop. Oh, and the snow is piled up in feet around and on his coop. His birds thrive, and he's been keeping them in that type of housing for years. He lives in New England where they don't have the dry cold we have. So I'd say that if you can ventilate your coop adequately to keep humidity down while avoiding direct drafts on them and keep the bedding dry, you are way ahead of the game and your chickens should be fine. They put out a lot of humidity with breathing and pooping, and that needs to have a way to get out.

I plan to cover my outside run with heavy duty clear plastic (the kind designed for greenhouses) to trap heat in the daytime and yes, my chickens did go out into the run last winter even in the snow, and even before I decided to use plastic. They weren't real crazy about that white stuff, but they love the sunshine so they forced themselves.

 

[iwiw60]

EXCELLENT post, and I'm in agreement with you totally! Can I have permission to re-post it to the thread

Preparing Your Coop & Flock for WINTER thread?

A lot of newbies would gain great knowledge from it...let me know!