Birds dying...extreme cold! **UPDATE** 12/23 PG 10

[Nefertiti]

LOL ....My husband laughed when I 'wallpapered' the inside of the coop with old feed bags. But hey, it does the job.
As for keeping just a few birds warm for the night, I'd have to nuke (1 or 2 mins)a cup or two of rice (dry),pour it into an old sock and then wrap that in enough cloth to not scald the birds before morning.

 

[Montana-Hens]

Oil heaters can be dangerous as well.

Our friends had an oil heater in her coop and somehow one of the birds pecked at the cord enough for it to smolter all night. Deep litter moisture kept it from the fire, but she lost about 1/2 her flock to smoke inhallation.

I feel bad for your loss. I know it was -23 before the windchill her today. I went out a couple of times today to check on the ladies, but they were not interested in coming out.

 

[luvmygirlsinAK]

Quote:
That's why many chicken lovers build a separate caged-in area for the electric sealed oil heaters. The person we bought our RIR/Aracaunas from does this as well as a few others that I have seen in the area. She actually used an old rabbit cage, and put the heater up on a concrete block, the top was covered to keep stuff out of the cage, and it works quite well this way.

 

[Guinea Goonie]

My "coop" has three spaces in it. Two of them can be connected, but this winter I have less chicks. I am geting smarter. I have closed off the third space and am using only two. The entire area is 8x10 and about 7 ft high. I have a 4x3 area that is NOT in a chicken space, enough to put a quartz heater in away from the chickies.

They hudle up to the heater. I have two 250 watt heat lamps, one in each space. They hudle under this too. I do not have the "coop" insulted, but am considering it.

what type of insulation do any of you all use ? I am even considering using some old moving pads up against the walls.

 

[cicene mete]

Quote:
a 200 sq ft space is about as big as a 6x6x6 area. This is pretty small. I have a 8x10x7=560 sq ft area that I heat with a quartz heater. It keeps the area at about 50 degrees F with outside temps below 20 degrees F.

They are talking about square feet; you are talking about cubic feet. So room that is 8 x 10 x 7 is an 80 ft.² room but a 560 ft.³ room.

But I will say this, they are being deliberately vague. They say it heats "up to 120-200 sq ft room." If the room is say 12 x 10 x 4, it will require a lot less heat than a room that is 12 x 10 x 12, although both are 120 ft.² rooms. Still, because of the fire risk of so many kinds of heaters, it might be worth giving one of these a shot.

 

[luvmygirlsinAK]

Quote:
We use double foam insulation. (2 sheets) This works well, and many houses in the arctic extremes use this for their insulation up here. This type of insulation is better than fiberglass because even if it were to get damp, it does not lose its insulating properties like the fiberglass insulation.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

Gee, that's terrible. I'm so sorry you're having so much trouble. It's really frigid here right now, too. I guess a lot of people are getting hit with it.

I noticed you said you've increased the amount you're feeding. If you aren't free feeding, I would start doing that. You could also try giving a warm mash in the evenings, to heat them from the inside.

I would try the suggestions to enclose their roosting areas, to keep them warmer. It would trap more of their body heat and make sure they aren't in a draft, but still allow ventilation of the coop. I remember seeing a great photo of a coop that had something like TekFoil made into a roost enclosure, last year. You could use anything that keeps their body heat from escaping. Basically, it's like a tiny version of a horse's outdoor run in shelter, only it's enclosing the roost.

Here's an enclosed roost, on a BYC page. In their case, they even put a cloth in front, to further enclose it. The ones I've seen in the past, just had the back, sides and top. I couldn't find anything with google, although I tried!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=7883-vermont-winter-coop

 

[Smoky73]

Sorry you are losing birds. When I woke up yesterday morning, the temp outside was -18°F and that was without windchill. This am was not much better. My silkies actually had FROST on their heads and backs! And, they are completely closed in, with plastic up on all windows and such. It is just that cold. Did not lose any though. If it would not have warmed up during the day, I would have brought as many as I could into the laundry room in pet carriers to weather out the weather LOL.

 

[Guinea Goonie]

Quote:
a 200 sq ft space is about as big as a 6x6x6 area. This is pretty small. I have a 8x10x7=560 sq ft area that I heat with a quartz heater. It keeps the area at about 50 degrees F with outside temps below 20 degrees F.

They are talking about square feet; you are talking about cubic feet. So room that is 8 x 10 x 7 is an 80 ft.² room but a 560 ft.³ room.

But I will say this, they are being deliberately vague. They say it heats "up to 120-200 sq ft room." If the room is say 12 x 10 x 4, it will require a lot less heat than a room that is 12 x 10 x 12, although both are 120 ft.² rooms. Still, because of the fire risk of so many kinds of heaters, it might be worth giving one of these a shot.

My BAD. However, I have a quartz heater that is running at 1500 watts with two 250 watt heat lamps and it BARELY keeps the area that is 10x8 80 sq ft above 50 degress F. So I can not imagine a heater as described that would heat a 20x10 area. I have a 7 ft. hieght and the holes are plugged up so no heat escapes.

I am going to get the foam insulation, the type that is about 1 inch thick and can easily be cut to size with an aluminium backing so the birds do not peck at it.

 

[chicknmania]

If I were you I would be looking for another cause besides the cold. It routinely gets that cold here and we have never lost a bird due to cold...some breeds are more hardy than others...I know Houdans aren't particularly hardy...or at least that's what I've read, we've only had one....but losing that many is unusual, I think, unless there's a virus or something going around. Ours are in a barn and they roost in the rafters...when it is really cold they move lower..it is sheltered in there, but no heat.l..except central heat from their own bodies...there's just no logical way to heat it. Sometimes we will turn a heat light on for them on very cold mornings, but never all night.