Chickens seems too hot in coop at night, but the temp is not very high

[Henfla]

My chickens are used to mostly cold weather and tolerate that very well. We live in the arctic in Europe. My coop is designed for very cold climate, but I do have ventilation also. The last month we have had very nice and warm weather, with day temperatures up to 80 degrees. The chickens seems fine during daytime, because they stay in the shade and dust bathe alot.
During the night, all the chickens are roosting with their wings spread out and some of them are panting a little. The temperature during the night in the coop is about 60-68 degrees (I have a thermometer in there). I just can't understand that it's too hot for them at night with that temperature?
Is it okay even though they seem hot at night?

 

[FrostRanger]

Can you post some pictures of your coop? And how many birds total do you have?

 

[Henfla]

Can you post some pictures of your coop? And how many birds total do you have?

I have six birds now. You can't see the ventilation on this picture as it is opposite to the roosting bars, but it's just a few degrees hotter inside the coop than outside, so I think the ventilation is good enough and we only have daytime temps above 68 degrees (20 degrees celcius) for maximum a month or two during summer, so installing a lot more ventilation will make it hard to keep the temps up during our very long winter. I also keep the coop door (automatic) open until midnight for extra ventilation.

 

[LaFleche]

Install a removable "summer door/wall", meaning a big frame covered in hardware cloth that will be installed instead of one entire coop wall.

Works great.

 

[lomine]

You could try a fan to increase air flow. Ideally point it to push the warmer air out one opening and pull cooler air in from another opening/vent. You could point it at the chickens, but I've found that mine don't really like that, even in hot weather.

 

[saysfaa]

... I just can't understand that it's too hot for them at night with that temperature?

It is because they have adapted to the cold. They have more heat-generating tissues in their muscles than chicken that have not adapted to the cold. It is similar to brown fat in mammals.

I could find the studies on it if you want to read them yourself but basically researchers compared chicks from the same flocks. Some were regularly exposed to cold and others were not. The ones exposed to cold grew more of the brown-fat-like tissues than the others did.

Other researchers compared the tissues of chickens raised and kept in similar temperatures. Some were of breeds developed in near arctic areas and others were breeds developed in warm areas. If I remember right, they were looking for the same types of tissues.

It is called muscle thermogenesis, if anyone wants to look for the studies themselves.

Is it okay even though they seem hot at night?

I don't know. I'm sorry I can't help with that part. I'd go by how they act rather than the numbers on the thermometer though.