Are my chickens ok in this awful cold??

[Leisure105]

I live in the foothills of the Rockys in Alberta. If you wanna talk cold.....we get -20 regularly and have had week long spells of -30 during the day and the odd -40 night. I have an old holiday trailer converted and insulated for a coop. The "heated side " is 6x6 bedroom with closet and drawers for nesting boxes. Roosts are 4 ft off the floor and away from the walls and hay bedding. There is also an old style brooder lamp hanging by a chain from the ceiling that hangs just below the roost level but high enough that birds on the ground can't burn feathers on the lamp(yes that has happened...). I know that I risk fire however it does get dang cold in the winter. Have kept chickens in this coop for 12 years now and only saw frostbite once. I see humidity and ammonia are things to watch for but what are your thoughts on ventilation.ive usually tried to shut them in tight to keep in the warmth. In -25 to -35 two lamps keeps the coop about -10 but prolonged closure does let ammonia build up somewhat especially over a week. Any suggestions?

 

[Beekissed]

Why not try using better ventilation along with your heat and see what happens? Try opening up some air at the floor level and some at the roof level and let that cool air move the warm air from your lamps right on up past your birds.

That's how I use the warmth emanating from my deep litter...with that system, the roosting area is 10 degrees warmer than the outside air, so when it's -17, I'm sitting on only- 7 degrees at the roost level. That's also how I move humidity from the DL and the roosting birds upwards and out the top of the coop. As long as it's moving and not settling on the birds, it works wonderfully.

Or you could do an experiment and see how they do without the heat altogether....just try it for a few days and monitor the results. If they do fine, do it a few days more. The wild fowl are out in the weather and surviving the cold just fine, so you might be surprised your chickens~with their steady food supply and shelter~do just as well.

 

[clehmberg]

I have a thermometer and humidity gauge in my coop, what is considered to much humidity? I live in Salt Lake City, Ut and the coldest it has gotten down to is 20 degrees, this is my first winter with my girls and I was worried about them being cold so I put a heat lamp with a thermostate in the coop, I am now rethinking what I should do. Its hard not to look at it from a human point of view especially when you love them so much but I think I will take out the heat lamp...I hope they arent to used to it.

 

[lazy gardener]

@clehmberg 20 degrees is cake walk compared to winter temps in a lot of the country. I'd not worry about those temps at all. I leave my coop windows open at night with the temps getting down to 15 - 20* regularly now. I'll not close those windows until it goes below that, and even then, I'll leave one window open a couple of inches. (I have soffit vents, as well as 2 8 x 10 eave vents) You can remove the heat lamp, and rest assured that your flock will be fine. I'm guessing that your winter humidity is pretty dry. But the moisture you have to worry about is the exhaled moisture from their lungs, as well as the evaporation from their feces. You also need to worry about ammonia build up, which is why ventilation is stressed so much. That ammonia can burn their delicate respiratory tissues. If you can pick up any odor of ammonia at all, the level is too high.

 

[clehmberg]

If i pull out the lamp I'm afraid they will stop laying because of the change. my humidity gauge says that is almost 40% humidity in there, which I'm assuming is to much so I will open the vents more. I keep the coop very clean so there is no ammonia smell at all. Its all so confusing because everyone has such different ideas on what is best. I love my girls very much which makes me over protective and smothering, 4 of them got out one day and I didn't get home till well after dark and there was only 1 in the coop, I totally freaked out and thought the worst and I barely slept that night. when I woke up, the 1 remaining hen was excited and pacing by the door and I looked to see why she was so nervous and there they were all 4 of them wandering home as if nothing ever happend. I don't remember the last time I was so excited to see a pet.

 

[Beekissed]

First thing I'd advise is to just take a deep breath. It's supposed to be fun and relaxing to raise animals for food, especially in such small numbers. If you are stressing it all the time, well, it's just not really worth a few eggs to feel that way. To remove all that excess drama in your life, you can try to accept that all things die and chickens die quicker and more than most things because they are food for everything and they just aren't designed to hang around as long as dogs or cats. Not really good for pets, in other words, unless you like getting your heart broken over and over and over.

They are cute, interesting and even funny...but try not to see them as pets or this all gets too stressful and over dramatic for any one life.

Now, after you wrap your mind around that, you can relax and just treat this as a learning thing. First, it helps to realize that God made this animal perfect for what it does and where it lives....you are merely there to keep it fed, watered, sheltered and safe from predators. Worrying about keeping it warm is God's job, for the most part, and He has given birds a unique design for just that thing. I'd not try to second guess the Creator, He is the ultimate source of info on the birds in your care.

With that in mind, the best you can do is try to mimic their natural life as much as is possible for you. Observe wild fowl, how they live, how they eat, where they live all throughout the seasons and try to get as close to that as possible when you raise chickens and you'll have an easier time, the birds will stay healthier and you'll have more fun with it all.

Just do the best you can and turn the rest over to God and you really can't go wrong. No worries.

 

[clehmberg]

Thats great advice and I am having fun, more fun than I ever thought I would. My dad, who is 83 years old also has chickens so it has been a bonding experience for both of us, I call him almost daily with a funny chicken story and we both laugh like crazy. I'm just over protective like a new daddy because I don't have kids, which is only natural.

 

[Blooie]

First thing I'd advise is to just take a deep breath. It's supposed to be fun and relaxing to raise animals for food, especially in such small numbers. If you are stressing it all the time, well, it's just not really worth a few eggs to feel that way. To remove all that excess drama in your life, you can try to accept that all things die and chickens die quicker and more than most things because they are food for everything and they just aren't designed to hang around as long as dogs or cats. Not really good for pets, in other words, unless you like getting your heart broken over and over and over.

They are cute, interesting and even funny...but try not to see them as pets or this all gets too stressful and over dramatic for any one life.

Now, after you wrap your mind around that, you can relax and just treat this as a learning thing. First, it helps to realize that God made this animal perfect for what it does and where it lives....you are merely there to keep it fed, watered, sheltered and safe from predators. Worrying about keeping it warm is God's job, for the most part, and He has given birds a unique design for just that thing. I'd not try to second guess the Creator, He is the ultimate source of info on the birds in your care.

With that in mind, the best you can do is try to mimic their natural life as much as is possible for you. Observe wild fowl, how they live, how they eat, where they live all throughout the seasons and try to get as close to that as possible when you raise chickens and you'll have an easier time, the birds will stay healthier and you'll have more fun with it all.

Just do the best you can and turn the rest over to God and you really can't go wrong. No worries.

Trust her - she knows from whence she speaks. I was the same way last year...fretting, always fretting. Is this right? will they die if I do this? Whining because a couple of them took exception to my hands always in the brooder, whining because they spilled their water for the 100th time that day, oh, I was a basket case. Then @Beekissed and a lot of other good people gave me a virtual smack upside the head and reminded me that they were chickens and I was doing more harm than good messing with them all the time. So I did exactly what she and the others advised me to do, get a grip, get a handle on the things I could control and let the Good Lord sort it out.

Now I toss them outside to live in the run as day old chicks under a heating pad when temps are in the teens. I use a bucket with horizontal nipples and don't sweat the water except for refilling it - they can't spill it or get poop and litter in it anymore. I feed them what I can afford to buy as long as the quality is good, and I don't try to win their hearts. The result? Healthy chickens who reward me by laying well, staying out of trouble (for the most part) and provide lots of smiles instead of nervous tremors! I'm loving having chickens again....and life is good!

 

[EmeraldOaks]

I have a sizable coop with a wired mesh side screen for ventilation running the entire length. With a full sized man door as my main entrance, it gets pretty cold in there if I left it open. All my birds dutifully go in at night on their own, and each night I close the door behind them. They have water and feed inside, and plenty of roosts. The hens even bed down with the ducks in their floor boxes.
I cover the floor with straw, and muck out when needed. Inside the coop is my "Isolation" cage, for chicks and broody hens. During the cold nights here in Gold Country in California, I have a chick lamp that I leave on at night. Temps are around 28-38 degrees, so the chick heat lamp works well for my flock, and is essential for my little ones. You might try hanging a chick light to stave off thecold. They previous post about insulating the outside with hay bales was a good one too, and straw hay is relatively cheap
.

 

[teach1rusl]

I'm one of the people that many frown upon because I do provide warming areas in some of my coops on the coldest nights. I have a group of oldies that I got in 2009, and lets face it, most oldies, whether human or canine or whatever, feels the cold a lot worse. That group of gals get a 75W heat bulb on cold nights. I have a coop of seramas (tiny bantam breed) who get a contained oil heater all winter long. On super cold nights (for my area of Indiana), my regular bantam coop gets a 50W heat bulb.

Healthy chickens with good nutrition/water, in a draft free environment, should be able to easily survive in temps well below freezing. Do they enjoy it? Probably not...lol. But we all deal with things we don't necessarily enjoy. That's life. I view my chickens as pets, and so they're afforded a little more comfort.

By the way...if used properly, heat lamps are wonderful things. Low wattage bulbs (found in the reptile section of most pet stores) and lamps secured properly (wired, screwed, or chained in place...not clamped) with plenty of clearance from potential combustibles...