Baked bricks for sub zero days! just a friendly tip from up North!

[BigBlueHen53]

be careful heating bricks!

? Is it dangerous?

 

[RoyalChick]

Just sharing as someone who lives in a region where it Sub-Zero for 2 months of the year and below freezing for the rest of the 4 and a half months a year of winter, what I do to help the chickens out on these especially cold snaps when it gets into the negatives!

I bake 4 bricks (you could do as many as you want I'm just not willing to carry more than four out to the coop ) at 400° on an old sheet tray for 40 to 45 minutes and then I cover them with a towel ***this is important they will absolutely burn their feet on the bricks if you do not cover the bricks with a towel*** sheet pan and all and just put it on the coop floor. It stays hot for HOURS, the chickens sit on it, huddle around it etc and according to the thermometer in my coop it raises the temp almost 5 degrees (my coop is 8 x16 feet it will heat a small coop much more, also this is not "adding heat" to my coop I don't want to hear it... it going from -6° up to -1° is not going to kill or "spoil" my chickens lol)

I just tuck the towel ends under the sheet tray so that their scratching with their feet at the towel doesn't pull the towel off the bricks. Today it was -6° highs all day, I went out 3 hours after I put the bricks out there and they were still warm to the touch.
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Brilliant idea. I am absolutely going to do this!

 

[Echelontheory101]

Brilliant idea. I am absolutely going to do this!

I'm back above 0 finally so didnt do it for them today but they loved it the last couple! You'll have to let me know how it goes!

 

[Echelontheory101]

? Is it dangerous?

Other than that theyre hot and dont burn yourself no.

I recommended doing in an oven as stated in my op if you leave wet cold bricks in a huge bonfire outdoors for hours bricks can crack or pop with extreme tempurature swings. however ordinary bricks may begin to fail at roughly 1,200°F. So in a 400 degree oven they are fine just use basic common sense. If hot bricks were dangerous fireplaces and chimneys wouldnt be built out of them for the last 1000 years

 

[RoyalChick]

Other than that theyre hot and dont burn yourself no.

I recommended doing in an oven as stated in my op if you leave wet cold bricks in a huge bonfire outdoors for hours bricks can crack or pop with extreme tempurature swings. however ordinary bricks may begin to fail at roughly 1,200°F. So in a 400 degree oven they are fine just use basic common sense. If hot bricks were dangerous fireplaces and chimneys wouldnt be built out of them for the last 1000 years

There are even firebricks that are engineered to retain heat for longer.

 

[Echelontheory101]

There are even firebricks that are engineered to retain heat for longer.

True! You definitely have to be careful with anything terra cotta cause thats more prone to cracking and whatnot but firebricks Id assume would be the same as regular I've never used them! I just seem to always have a stray pile of ordinary red bricks laying around for all my unfinished projects

 

[Justagalwithchicks]

This is a great idea to knock the chill off before they go to bed. Thank you