How do you heat your coops

[EpicBlueAcres]

DE really doesn't get rid of mites. It helps dry out the dampness, which just about it. I use sevin in their dust baths. That stuff will kill any external parasites FAST.
But my chickens are like yours, poop everywhere. In the summer, they drink a lot of water to stay cool.. Therefore their poop can be runny - and they projectile poop all over the walls

Was thinking about adding sevin bit worried if the girls ate any, is it safe if ingested small amounts?

 

[aoxa]

Was thinking about adding sevin bit worried if the girls ate any, is it safe if ingested small amounts?

It won't hurt.

I have never had any issues with it. Just don't sprinkle it in their food or water.

ETA: link https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/78926/just-want-to-share-my-sevin-dust-experience-with-you

 

[Fred's Hens]

Was thinking about adding sevin bit worried if the girls ate any, is it safe if ingested small amounts?

Equally effective is a poultry or garden dust, permethrin type product. These are perceived to be much safer products, but quite effective against the insects, mites, and nasties. Just another option and one I personally prefer over a Sevin type product.

 

[aoxa]

Equally effective is a poultry or garden dust, permethrin type product.  These are perceived to be much safer products, but quite effective against the insects, mites, and nasties.  Just another option and one I personally prefer over a Sevin type product.

Wish we had the option. Here it is sevin or DE. DE does not work for me in the least.

Again, there are a lot of warnings with Sevin. There are warnings with anything. Tylenol for example. They have to state warnings so they won't be sued. It said to wear a respirator and long sleeves with gloves while dusting. I have got it directly on my skin and didn't wash it off for hours. I have extremely sensitive skin, and it didn't do anything to me at all. Once I used proactive on my face and had a chemical burn for a week. So proactive is more unsafe in my opinion

 

[Fred's Hens]

Wish we had the option. Here it is sevin or DE. DE does not work for me in the least.

I agree on the ineffectiveness of DE. Check this link. Pretty sure you could have Garden Dust or Poultry Dust shipped right to your house. Worth checking on.
http://www.amazon.com/Prozap-Permethrin-Garden-Poultry-Dust/dp/B007YCL3K8

 

[aoxa]

I agree on the ineffectiveness of DE. Check this link. Pretty sure you could have Garden Dust or Poultry Dust shipped right to your house. Worth checking on. http://www.amazon.com/Prozap-Permethrin-Garden-Poultry-Dust/dp/B007YCL3K8

I am in Canada and the shipping costs more than the product. 20$ US for shipping. :/ Bummer...

 

[Minniechickmama]

Back to the idea of ducks with chickens over winter, and housing ducks in general....
I would NEVER keep the two confined over winter. In fact, I don't even keep them together in the summer any more

. Ducks are so messy, I can't even imagine how nasty that would be.
So, let me tell you about keeping ducks for the first time, I HAD to keep them in the brooder to get their little house built first. So, I hurried to get it done as soon as I could. By this time I was putting the ducks out in the day and in at night just to reduce the mess and smell in the garage. Finally, I get the house done and a pen around it. I put the ducks out and those **** things wouldn't even use it! The only time they went in was when I put them there. THEN when winter rolled around and I was stuck with 8 ducks, they still only used the house about 4 or 5 of the coldest days, rain, snow, sleet or shine! The PREFER to be outside. Even now, they go in to get out of the sun, but the cold days, they huddle down, tuck their heads under their wings and sleep through whatever comes.
My turkeys are the same way. I have a place for them to go in, but they go roost on the top of those outdoor pens and stay there no matter the weather. Not real brilliant, in my opinion.
And yes, my turkeys run with the chickens, and the ducks or outside the pasture, depending on what tickles their fancy. I have 6-foot fences and they fly right over and go where they want to go. I mean to remedy that before the snow flies and keep them in their own place, but it is on my long to do list.

 

[bristolegghead]

I dont heat the coop. As long as the bird has somewhere to shelter from any driving sub zero wind she will be absolutley ok. The main thing to remember is access to water that has not frozen. I would never heat the coop.

 

[aoxa]

Back to the idea of ducks with chickens over winter, and housing ducks in general.... I would NEVER keep the two confined over winter. In fact, I don't even keep them together in the summer any more . Ducks are so messy, I can't even imagine how nasty that would be. So, let me tell you about keeping ducks for the first time, I HAD to keep them in the brooder to get their little house built first. So, I hurried to get it done as soon as I could. By this time I was putting the ducks out in the day and in at night just to reduce the mess and smell in the garage. Finally, I get the house done and a pen around it. I put the ducks out and those **** things wouldn't even use it! The only time they went in was when I put them there. THEN when winter rolled around and I was stuck with 8 ducks, they still only used the house about 4 or 5 of the coldest days, rain, snow, sleet or shine! The PREFER to be outside. Even now, they go in to get out of the sun, but the cold days, they huddle down, tuck their heads under their wings and sleep through whatever comes. My turkeys are the same way. I have a place for them to go in, but they go roost on the top of those outdoor pens and stay there no matter the weather. Not real brilliant, in my opinion. And yes, my turkeys run with the chickens, and the ducks or outside the pasture, depending on what tickles their fancy. I have 6-foot fences and they fly right over and go where they want to go. I mean to remedy that before the snow flies and keep them in their own place, but it is on my long to do list.

My ducks refuse to be controlled. They go where they want. I am trying my best to keep the calls out of the silkie pen, but they keep flying in and sleeping there at night because it's the only coop I keep water in. What I did was push back all the shavings and keep the ground simple dirt.

Here is what I mean. The barn is all dirt floor in this part of it. This is where the silkies are housed along with the grow outs. I sweep back the shavings near the ramp and put the water there. No issues with mess now on the ground - but the waterers are definitely dirtier. My ducks hated going outside in snow. They don't mind the cold, it's the snow they don't like.

 

[bruceha2000]

This is our first year in our new house, and it is heated by wood. I don't know how much I will like that. To get up in that cold and start a fire.. Brr.. I am not good with cold, but my chickens definitely are!

re: heating with wood.
Depends on how big the stove is, how efficient it is and how much volume you are heating. Nice and warm near the stove and mezmerizing. Like watching chickens

Lie on the floor watching the fire and you'll fall asleep!

New house (to us) last Nov., supposed to have a working woodstove. 1 week before closing we're told it doesn't work (top cracked). So we got a new stove but were limited on our choices for replacement because the flue into the chimney was pretty low. Most stove pipes come out the top or if they can come out the back, they were still too high. We went with the Harmon 300, it has optional "short legs" and heats our ~1600 sq ft well ASSUMING you don't want the bedrooms at high temp. We sleep cool so it works very well. The heat goes up the stairwell at one end of the house (the stove is at the other end, I'd rather it were in the middle but oh well). You can certainly get powered wall and floor registers if you want to actively move air to specific places.

The "new technology" stoves don't use catalytics to burn off the stuff that causes creosote, they have "secondary air" burn (no power, just convection). There is a plate along the top of the burn chamber with a row of holes like you would see in a gas burner and when the chamber is hot, there will sometimes be flames starting at them that makes it look like a gas burner. Burn through the window looks more like Aurora Borealis than a fire. That is the gasified wood burning, there are no flames on the wood once it heats up and zero smoke out the chimney. You get a lot more heat IN the house per cord of wood than with "old tech" stoves that didn't burn it all and need very high stack temps to pull it out, then depositing creosote on the chimney walls as it cools.

We get about 8 hours out of ours but the coals in the ash on the bottom will be there HOURS and HOURS after the wood is gone. Just open the air regulator, rake the coals into a pile and put some small stuff on the pile and larger wood on top of that. Poof, instant fire. When running it 24x7, morning is about 5 min of work. Open the regulator, put some small-medium sized wood on the coals. Come back in 5 minutes and put in some larger pieces. Come back awhile later, load it up and close the regulator down to 'low'. We remove the ash maybe every 2 weeks. ALWAYS leave at least an inch (25 mm for you intelligent folks) of ash in the fire box. This is the LAST place one wants to be really tidy, the ash holds the coals.

It is the fall and spring "time for a little heat" fires that are time consuming. With no coals, you need to start from scratch every time and in our stove that takes about 45 minutes. Not continual, but you have to start with a lot smaller stuff and then work up.


We also have a Caframo Ecofan 812. Sits on top of the stove, heat runs the fan. NOT a big blow but circulation. Don't know how to scientifically figure out how much it is really doing for us. Claim is 150 cu ft per minute. Oddly, I found it cheapest online at a marine chandlery. It is for use on WOOD STOVES. Boat would have to be pretty big to have a wood stove

This is SO way off topic. Sorry. Hmmm, OK, you can bring the chickens into the living room to stay warm by the wood stove if it is really cold out instead of heating the coop.

I intend to do NEITHER. I'm going to cover all but the top few inches of hardware cloth with plexiglas so they still have ventilation AND light. The coop is a stall in a barn, the front wall is 8' from the outside barn wall with SOME windows and it faces west so there isn't all that much light until mid afternoon anyway. Plexi will make for much more expensive eggs but will let in a lot more light than "clear" plastic.