- Apr 7, 2013
- 26
- 17
- 87
Hi All,
We had a pretty good snowstorm the last day and a half and I ended up leaving my birds in the coop all day yesterday. I shoveled them out this morning and looked them all over and noticed that my rooster had a small amount of frostbite on his comb. All of my birds are 2020 hatches, so all are less than a year old. I have ventilation high up, but based on Rodney's comb, I'm thinking I will be adding more in the Spring. In the interim though, I'm looking for ideas on what I should do to get through the current winter (I'm in New England, so it gets good and cold here). Coop is wood, uninsulated, with deep shavings bed on the floor. I use a 5Gal bucket with nipples for water, so there isn't evaporation that goes into the air from their coop waterer.
Should I install a computer fan in the vent pointing out so the interior coop (humid) air gets pushed outside? I have a bluetooth thermometer/hygrometer, so I could probably set up some IFTTT rules to have the fan turn on when the humidity gets above x%.
and/or
Should I put in a couple of the heat panels or one of those dog house heaters to keep the inside of the coop just above freezing? I'm not looking to have the coop warm as I know that is bad for the birds, I'd only want it to be able to stay slightly above 32 when needed.
Any other ideas?
Thanks!
We had a pretty good snowstorm the last day and a half and I ended up leaving my birds in the coop all day yesterday. I shoveled them out this morning and looked them all over and noticed that my rooster had a small amount of frostbite on his comb. All of my birds are 2020 hatches, so all are less than a year old. I have ventilation high up, but based on Rodney's comb, I'm thinking I will be adding more in the Spring. In the interim though, I'm looking for ideas on what I should do to get through the current winter (I'm in New England, so it gets good and cold here). Coop is wood, uninsulated, with deep shavings bed on the floor. I use a 5Gal bucket with nipples for water, so there isn't evaporation that goes into the air from their coop waterer.
Should I install a computer fan in the vent pointing out so the interior coop (humid) air gets pushed outside? I have a bluetooth thermometer/hygrometer, so I could probably set up some IFTTT rules to have the fan turn on when the humidity gets above x%.
and/or
Should I put in a couple of the heat panels or one of those dog house heaters to keep the inside of the coop just above freezing? I'm not looking to have the coop warm as I know that is bad for the birds, I'd only want it to be able to stay slightly above 32 when needed.
Any other ideas?
Thanks!