Chickens won't go to bed in below freezing temps!

but....the heat lamp was no problem from September - December??? We turned it on in September when we had freezing night temps...they didn't start staying out of the coop until December when it was 18 degrees to -4 degrees. And last May and June, they stayed in when it was 32 at night and the heat lamp came on at 35 degrees.
 
Noooo...we turned off the light, and waited and waited. It's almost 7PM here, pitch dark and 13 degrees. We just got in from tossing them into the coop. I hope they go to bed on their own soon! It's so cold! It was 1 degree this morning when I unlocked the coop. We locked them in last night, too , after putting them to bed at 8:30PM.
I'm hoping a week of this will cure them. I'll put the heat lamp on later along with the heater for the waterer. Sheesh.
 
Have you tried removing the doggy door to see if they will go in if it is just open? Maybe as they got older/bigger they don't feel comfortable having to push the door to go in anymore when it starts getting dark out. Ours is a sliding door on a pulley-type setup that we open in the morning and close after they go in at night, maybe something like that would work better for them.
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I suspect something entered through the doggie door and frightened them.
This was my thought, too. Sometimes all it takes is one event to start a new habit. Chickens are funny that way. The other thing I wonder about is if you have bars or branches suitable for roosting in the run. If you do, I think that sleeping in the run might become a recurrent problem, even if you are successful in breaking the habit now. I used to keep some roosting bars in one of my runs, just to give them something to fly/hop onto for exercise when we were not able to free range them. But I've since removed them, because sometimes one or more would decide to sleep on the roost in the run. Since removing all roosts from the run, I've never had one spend the night there.
 
I also agree with the others (and apparently with your chickens) who think supplemental heat is unnecessary. As long as you have cold hardy breeds and provide shelter from wind and precipitation, cold hardy breeds will be fine.
 

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