What temperature does is too cold at night? When to add heat lamp and door on coop?

[Goldenwahintofboss]

I live in Canada, average winter temperature is -15C/5F some periods as low as -30C/-22F.

Chickens do not need any additional heat in the colder months. If you add heat and have an electrical failure your chickens can be severely impacted negatively as they are not conditioned to the colder temperatures.

our chickens should NEVER be closed in. Ventilation is the most important thing after feed/water. The ventilation removes moisture and ammonia that build naturally from their dropping and breathing. The ventilation should be designed to avoid drafts directly on the birds, if you can see feathers moving from air movement you have a problem.

There are tons of threads on proper ventilation here on BYC.

Thanks. You answered my pressing question. I live in northern Canada. It's -45 some days here. Will just add a heater on those days. They have a heat lamp near the floor they can go to dry off rainy days. I think they like it. There are 15 in my coop now. W 4 nesting boxes. It's pretty cozy. Lots of ventilation but no drafts.

 

[Orpigton]

I believe as long as they have plenty of bedding and you have multiple chickens, I am assuming you do, no heat is necessary and as long as they have good wind breaks you shouldn't need a door. In fact most of my chickens refuse to sleep inside no matter the weather!

It's starting to get cold here in SE North Carolina, but only in the evenings. Our chickens are 8 months old this is our first year raising doing this, so I'm unsure when it gets to be too cold for them at night. It got down to the 40s last nigh.

What temperature is too cold at night? When should we add heat lamp and a door on coop? We had an electronic coop door on a timer but it didn't operate correctly so we took it off. Should they be closed inside in the winter with a heat lamp or is just a heat lamp enough?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Ted Brown]

Thanks. You answered my pressing question. I live in northern Canada. It's -45 some days here. Will just add a heater on those days. They have a heat lamp near the floor they can go to dry off rainy days. I think they like it. There are 15 in my coop now. W 4 nesting boxes. It's pretty cozy. Lots of ventilation but no drafts.

You did not say specifically where you are located.

My reference to temperatures were absolute NOT including wind chill. When I read your post I realized mine may not have been clear.

Good luck!

 

[SirSquirrelNutz]

Hello - piggyback on this post, but love to hear what people say about this:
https://extension.umn.edu/small-scale-poultry/caring-chickens-cold-weather
According to the University of Minnesota Extension caring for chickens in cold weather quick facts are as follows:

• Provide supplemental heat when coop temperatures fall below 35 degrees F.
• Collect eggs as soon as you can and throw away any with cracked shells.
• Make sure your chickens have free access to fresh, clean water.
• Manage manure and provide ventilation to control moisture in your coop.
• Heavier standard and dual-purpose breeds can handle the cold better.

They advise adding heat. Now I know when I talk to people from that region ( I live in WI) they want to how I'll heat in the winter. Love to understand why they publish this as facts while others say it's just a matter of time before you kill your birds when you give them heat. Also, this is just anecdotal, but I believe feral chickens only survive in a year-round warmer climate.... so why not colder climates?

I am a total newbie, but his topic is wild to read what is best practice. This is the first winter with chickens and the main fear is my wife is not convinced that no heating is right and they are too cold so time to bring them into the house and 2nd is frozen chickens.

​

 

[DobieLover]

I am a total newbie, but his topic is wild to read what is best practice. This is the first winter with chickens and the main fear is my wife is not convinced that no heating is right and they are too cold so time to bring them into the house and 2nd is frozen chickens.

It is what they THINK the birds need. I'll bet none of them stopped to really think about it.

I'm going into my 5th winter with chickens. My birds have experienced an all time low of -23F and lots and lots of nights with sub-zero temps. I don't heat my coop. I DO provide ample amounts of ventilation, protection from drafts at roost level and don't keep open water sources in my coop.

I will, however, confess to turning on my seedling heat mats in the nest boxes and putting older/molting birds in them after full dark to help keep them warm. When birds get this old, you don't get eggs in the winter so having to clean out nest boxes when the poop boards are cleaned in the morning isn't a big deal for me.

 

[rosemarythyme]

• Provide supplemental heat when coop temperatures fall below 35 degrees F.
• Collect eggs as soon as you can and throw away any with cracked shells.
• Make sure your chickens have free access to fresh, clean water.
• Manage manure and provide ventilation to control moisture in your coop.
• Heavier standard and dual-purpose breeds can handle the cold better.

They advise adding heat. Now I know when I talk to people from that region ( I live in WI) they want to how I'll heat in the winter.

While chickens may not love being in freezing temps a normal, healthy adult bird will not suffer from it either. The collective wisdom on this forum says most standard chickens do fine without heat as long as they have draft free, climate protected places to shelter (i.e. the coop, storm shelters) down to roughly -10F. Below that, especially for extended periods of time, you may need to plan on providing heat in some fashion.

I don't get anywhere near that cold, 12F is the lowest I've seen since I've lived here. At that temperature all vents and windows remain open in the coop, and birds will still choose to sleep right up against the windows.

If you have young birds, sick birds, small bantams or decorative breeds like Silkies which don't have feathers that hold in heat well, they'll need higher temperatures than that.

I'm glad at least they mention ventilation and the important of managing their poop as that adds moisture to the coop environment.

 

[aart]

Hello - piggyback on this post, but love to hear what people say about this:
https://extension.umn.edu/small-scale-poultry/caring-chickens-cold-weather
According to the University of Minnesota Extension caring for chickens in cold weather quick facts are as follows:

• Provide supplemental heat when coop temperatures fall below 35 degrees F.

It's sad to hear such mis-information coming from that kind of source.
I suppose it might be valid for commercial setups that wants eggs all year around.
The info about using petroleum jelly to prevent frostbite is also not accurate.


I've had chickens for 10 years in prolonged freezing temps, at times below zero F.
Never heated the coop. I do provide electrolytes at times to help with cold stress.

 

[SirSquirrelNutz]

While chickens may not love being in freezing temps a normal, healthy adult bird will not suffer from it either. The collective wisdom on this forum says most standard chickens do fine without heat as long as they have draft free, climate protected places to shelter (i.e. the coop, storm shelters) down to roughly -10F. Below that, especially for extended periods of time, you may need to plan on providing heat in some fashion.

I don't get anywhere near that cold, 12F is the lowest I've seen since I've lived here. At that temperature all vents and windows remain open in the coop, and birds will still choose to sleep right up against the windows.

If you have young birds, sick birds, small bantams or decorative breeds like Silkies which don't have feathers that hold in heat well, they'll need higher temperatures than that.

I'm glad at least they mention ventilation and the important of managing their poop as that adds moisture to the coop environment.

Thanks for your reply and information. Struggle with this and University Minnesota usual has done it's research before publication...just a huge gap from what most say on this form and those requirements.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Thanks for your reply and information. Struggle with this and University Minnesota usual has done it's research before publication...just a huge gap from what most say on this form and those requirements.

Their advice sounds like it's more oriented towards more commercial set ups, (though they specifically labeled it "small scale poultry") where it's common to have a standardized approach to everything from amount of light to temperature regulation to type of feed.

Going by their assessment my birds are too cold even though I live in a moderate climate. Yet there's quite a few members here in Alaska and in Canada that have chickens in unheated coops (aw well as ones that must have heated coops and enclosed runs, because it does get crazy cold where they're at).

 

[RubyLady]

Hello - piggyback on this post, but love to hear what people say about this:
https://extension.umn.edu/small-scale-poultry/caring-chickens-cold-weather
According to the University of Minnesota Extension caring for chickens in cold weather quick facts are as follows:

• Provide supplemental heat when coop temperatures fall below 35 degrees F.
• Collect eggs as soon as you can and throw away any with cracked shells.
• Make sure your chickens have free access to fresh, clean water.
• Manage manure and provide ventilation to control moisture in your coop.
• Heavier standard and dual-purpose breeds can handle the cold better.

They advise adding heat. Now I know when I talk to people from that region ( I live in WI) they want to how I'll heat in the winter. Love to understand why they publish this as facts while others say it's just a matter of time before you kill your birds when you give them heat. Also, this is just anecdotal, but I believe feral chickens only survive in a year-round warmer climate.... so why not colder climates?

I am a total newbie, but his topic is wild to read what is best practice. This is the first winter with chickens and the main fear is my wife is not convinced that no heating is right and they are too cold so time to bring them into the house and 2nd is frozen chickens.

​

I think you'd have to have a thermometer inside the coop to know if it's below 35F. I would have guessed it's been lower than that in ours at times in the last three years but then I'm not taking into account their own body heat, the heat of their poop and breath. I haven't lost a hen yet to the cold.

But when we cold-brooded ten chicks in September in our mudroom, we used hot water in big plastic water jugs when they needed heat to cuddle up to at night. We moved the chicklets to a coop outside when they were about 7 weeks old and just put those bottles in at night. We stopped when they were old enough, but when it got brutal lately, we used them again and changed them every 3 hours or so.

Because we have the older ones in the "summer coop" in a big fenced yard which is not meant for over-wintering, we took hot water jugs out to them also one night and banked up the floor heavily with straw and chinked up gaps. That has helped tremendously. Another thing you can do is make sure that during the day, they have a warm place in the sun. We got a greenhouse tarp and draped it over a homemade PVC pipe and chicken wire chicken tractor we no longer use. I put a layer of straw down and faced the opening away from the northwards and they hang out there all day on the cold days because it's so nice and warm. Then we also draped a small swings frame with traps, open at one end, and I feed them there out of the wind.

This is giving us time before we integrate them with the younger ones who are currently living in the "winter coop" which has the more durable coop and pen.

Maybe these are some things you can do to ease your fears about freezing your chickens. But while they can get frostbite, remember, the main thing is to keep them dry and out of cold winds and draughts. They still need good ventilation in the coop at the top, but if they are dry and out of the wind, they should be fine.

I should add that "supplemental heat" does not mean a heat lamp or brooder lamp as that is the cause of coop fires everywhere. Be careful HOW you add heat. Better to make sure they can retain their heat than ADD heat.