How do you heat your coops

[Our Roost]

Bogtown Chick, good post and response! I generally follow the "KISS" method and always tell myself to "KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID"! We have only been raising chickens for 3 years running now and the learning process never ends. The articles and information on here from fellow chicken owners is very educational as well as amusing and humerous! Gotta love it!!! I try to share from some of my own stupid mistakes and am still finding new ways to have fun and improve life for both my chickens and ourselfs. Caution to the wind and good judgement sometimes helps.

 

[AxisOfBeagles]

An interesting thread, and again one that highlights the continuum of why (and therefore how) we all keep chickens. At one end, some folks look on their chickens as pets, even family. At the other end, some folks (I tend to be more towards this end of the spectrum) look on their chickens as farm animals with specific purpose and cost-benefit. For folks of the former paradigm, insulating and heating and carpeting and so on are a natural consequence of how they wish their pets / friends to be treated. For some of us, those things add cost and complexities that we consider unnecessary. Interestingly enough, the chickens seem to thrive regardless.

My birds live in a coop that is secure from drafts or rain and snow, and kept fairly clean of poop and debris. Although they spend their day free-ranging, they seem to enjoy huddling close together in the coop at night, especially in the colder months. In the warmer part of the year, many of them prefer sleeping on top of the coop (especially the dominant rooster). I take the attitude that they know best what's fine for themselves, and they seem to do just fine.

 

[Adelina]

My friends in interior Alaska do heat their hen houses... One has ducting from the top of her fireplace out to her henhouse which is backed to her house for that purpose.. -60f is cold.

 

[OldGuy43]

My friends in interior Alaska do heat their hen houses... One has ducting from the top of her fireplace out to her henhouse which is backed to her house for that purpose.. -60f is cold.

Good to know. As soon as it gets to -60 here in Central Texas I'll keep that in mind.

Of course, since during the last ice age temps around here only got down to about 0 I think I'll have more to worry about than the comfort of my flock, things like surviving.

 

[Hokum Coco]

I live in Canada no heat @ -40º no problems.

Diary of last winter cold snap check out the link:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/738994/chickens-arctic-conditions-prolonged-period

 

[Our Roost]

Hokum Coco! Could you please go a little bit deeper into an explanation of how and what you have done so well to manage your set up without any problems at - 40 degrees? Tons of people on this web site have always made the comment that chickens don't need heat. That being said, I have to ask how chickens can manage that all by themselves. I truly understand that chickens can adapt to cold weather very well mostly and are built to withstand cold temps depending on the breed. Was the inside shelter or coop temp - 40 degrees? I have to believe your shelter is warmer than the colder outside temps. Obviously you have a very good set up to protect your chickens from the elements?

 

[Hokum Coco]

My temperature inside the coop would not be 5º different from the ambient air temperature outside the coop.

That -40º temperature I experienced last winter is I must confess was with the wind chill factor added in I actually think the ambient air temperature that day was around -28º if I remember correctly.



My chickens have 2" Styrofoam insulation in the metal coop but it was put their more to combat the heat in the summer as opposed to the cold. My roost are near the roof of the coop out of the draft and they all huddle together. The warm air from their bodies seems to be the difference.

I do feed heavier through the winter months to help them combat the cold.


I house an assortment of birds in this baby barn anything from ring neck pheasants, ducks, and white homing pigeons (¼ inch veneer plywood between birds and elements) no heat no light no problems.

 

[Gargoyle]

Something I've brought up before, I wish people on both sides of the heat/no heat discussion would add a little bit of very relevant info- how many birds to you have?

If you have 25 chickens in an insulated, ventilated coop with no supplemental heat, the 25 bodies will produce a lot of heat. If you only have 3 or 4 chickens, the heat their bodies produce is much less. So, perhaps with a similar breed and similar coop construction, the answer that is correct for the flock of 25 might not be correct for a flock of 3 or 4. Is anyone here housing less than a half dozen chickens without heat in an area with -0 degrees F temps?

As to chickens surviving well the past few hundred years, maybe that is why they like to congregate in large groups- the loners may have died off from the cold, while the gregarious ones thrived. Just speculation... meanwhile, don't shoot someone down for using a different solution when you don't know the size of their flock.

 

[Our Roost]

One also needs to know where these chickens were imported from way back when. There is more history there than people care to mention or acknowledge.Back to the chicken or the egg question!

 

[Our Roost]

OldGuy43, Guess thats why you wear ten gallon hats instead of ear muffs!