Chicks in winter?

[TalkALittle]

The best investment of my time, energy, and money was putting a solid roof on my run. I'm in Massachusetts and we got record snowfall and blizzards last winter. My birds were happily scratching away in the roofed and wrapped run while the snow fell all around them.

 

[GodofPecking]

The best investment of my time, energy, and money was putting a solid roof on my run. I'm in Massachusetts and we got record snowfall and blizzards last winter. My birds were happily scratching away in the roofed and wrapped run while the snow fell all around them.

It is an excellent investment of time. I agree, I spent a lot of time making a really good chicken tractor the size of a regular RV and it has a solid roof. I recently started putting 'wings' on it. Fold out shade and shelter. Great investment of your time. ( and money if you don't use recycled materials )

For people who don't understand the simple science concepts mentioned in this thread and don't want to google the 'big words' you could always ask your science teacher at school, or your kids teacher. Things like 'warm air can't go down' don't take science into account.


Edited by Staff

 

[ShrekDawg]

The best investment of my time, energy, and money was putting a solid roof on my run. I'm in Massachusetts and we got record snowfall and blizzards last winter. My birds were happily scratching away in the roofed and wrapped run while the snow fell all around them.

I'm in Massachusetts too so it definitely sounds like a good investment! Last year was terrible. :/ we just got ours, they're 8 weeks old, and I thought maybe they wouldn't mind the snow but they definitely mind the rain so I probably should get a solid roof or at least on part if it. Plus the rain was blowing into the coop. As for the wrapping, I'm thinking that's a good idea too but I'm wondering, do you wrap the whole thing? Worriex about the ventilation and lighting

 

[blucoondawg]

Oh they will mind the snow. Mine don't like to come out in a small dusting, once there is serious accumulation they won't bother themselves with stepping out the door. Maybe if you shoveled an area down to hard ground they may go for it, I'm not sure I'm not about to shovel a playground for chickens.

 

[TalkALittle]

As for the wrapping, I'm thinking that's a good idea too but I'm wondering, do you wrap the whole thing? Worriex about the ventilation and lighting

I bought clear poly tarps. They aren't actually 100% clear. They're more of a hazy, semi-transparent white but they let in a LOT of light. I bought one to fit each of my run walls and attach them with bungee and ball tarp fasteners that I feed through screw eyes that are screwed into the run frame. There is a 6 inch gap around the top where the eaves are open at the rafters that is left open. Each wall has its own tarp so I can just roll them up from the bottom to open up any wall I want. Most times I open the front wall because that is the one that faces the house and lets me see the birds the best. It is also the one that faces my prevailing winds though, so sometimes I roll it down from the top so air can get in but it is up high, well above the birds so they don't get blasted by the breeze. With the gap at the eaves I didn't have any issues with condensation on the inside of the tarps and air quality was always good. When I stand in the run with all the tarps in place I can feel air coming in the front eaves and blowing out the back, but down near the ground the birds feathers don't even ruffle. The sunlight that comes through the tarp raises the temp in the run a couple of degrees higher than the temp outside. Because the run is sheltered from the wind, I can open the window of my coop that faces into the run for ventilation in the coop without worrying that wind or rain will blow in.

The tarps were more expensive than plastic construction sheeting that many people use to wrap their runs, but I can use the tarps year after year. I didn't mind the extra cost because I wanted to be able to roll them up on good weather days. I know that in southern New England we can have some weird warm spells (like this week's expected 60 degrees F) and I wanted to be able to take advantage of those days and open up the run to the fresh air and sun. I winterized the run in early November when the weather was still nice. All the tarps were hung and then rolled up out of the way. It took me all of 20 minutes and most of that time was spent trying to remember where I had stored the tarps. As the weather got colder and we began to have more windy days I just lowered the tarps one by one.

I love my tarps. They are very durable, easy to install and remove, and are able to be raised and lowered as needed. The time and worry they have saved me was definitely worth the extra cost.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Oh they will mind the snow. Mine don't like to come out in a small dusting, once there is serious accumulation they won't bother themselves with stepping out the door. Maybe if you shoveled an area down to hard ground they may go for it, I'm not sure I'm not about to shovel a playground for chickens.

Wow that's so weird because our family friend said his will go out and walk around and I think I've seen a couple pictures of ones out in winter so it must just depend on the bird because I have also heard of other ones like yours that won't go out in the bad weather. Either way I think some sort of protection will probably be good.

I bought clear poly tarps.  They aren't actually 100%  clear.  They're more of a hazy, semi-transparent white but they let in a LOT of light.  I bought one to fit each of my run walls and attach them with bungee and ball tarp fasteners that I feed through screw eyes that are screwed into the run frame.   There is a 6 inch gap around the top where the eaves are open at the rafters that is left open.  Each wall has its own tarp so I can just roll them up from the bottom to open up any wall I want.  Most times I open the front wall because that is the one that faces the house and lets me see the birds the best.  It is also the one that faces my prevailing winds though, so sometimes I roll it down from the top so air can get in but it is up high, well above the birds so they don't get blasted by the breeze.  With the gap at the eaves I didn't have any issues with condensation on the inside of the tarps and air quality was always good.  When I stand in the run with all the tarps in place I can feel air coming in the front eaves and blowing out the back, but down near the ground the birds feathers don't even ruffle.  The sunlight that comes through the tarp raises the temp in the run a couple of degrees higher than the temp outside.  Because the run is sheltered from the wind, I can open the window of my coop that faces into the run for ventilation in the coop without worrying that wind or rain will blow in.

The tarps were more expensive than plastic construction sheeting that many people use to wrap their runs, but I can use the tarps year after year.  I didn't mind the extra cost because I wanted to be able to roll them up on good weather days.  I know that in southern New England we can have some weird warm spells (like this week's expected 60 degrees F) and I wanted to be able to take advantage of those days and open up the run to the fresh air and sun.  I winterized the run in early November when the weather was still nice.  All the tarps were hung and then rolled up out of the way.  It took me all of 20 minutes and most of that time was spent trying to remember where I had stored the tarps.  As the weather got colder and we began to have more windy days I just lowered the tarps one by one.

I love my tarps.  They are very durable, easy to install and remove, and are able to be raised and lowered as needed.  The time and worry they have saved me was definitely worth the extra cost.

Thank you so much for all of the fantastic info and details! I believe I've seen those recommended before but now can't remember the website. though there's a lot of websites.

I think this definitely seems best. My dad mentioned a tarp but we only have traditional tarps and that would probably let no light in so I think I will need to invest in these.

This weather is definitely weird though!

So I'm assuming you have wood framed run then? I was planning on that but instead have a dog kennel atm. 12x4 or 6, can't remember, and I believe 6 feet high. Was gonna use a hoop coop but had this laying around. May make it bigger though. So I don't think I could screw anything in. Maybe there's another way?

I do love the ease though and the fact that with a more "traditional" run as opposed to the hoop thing I can have the openings up high.

How did you make it work with the gate? Also if you have any suggestions for attaching the wire for the skirt to the door too. Going 1 foot out on ground, 2 feet up walls. Don't know what to do about the door though.

Also unsure on the roof. Unsure on lots hah

Anyway, thanks again and tia

 

[Ballerina Bird]

The best investment of my time, energy, and money was putting a solid roof on my run. I'm in Massachusetts and we got record snowfall and blizzards last winter. My birds were happily scratching away in the roofed and wrapped run while the snow fell all around them.

Totally x2 on this. Last year I clamped a tarp to my run roof whenever rain was coming, which was a huge pain (I couldn't find clear tarps so had to keep putting them on and taking them off), so this year I added a fixed, sloped roof made of clear polycarbonate panels (inspired by a coop build I saw here). So nice to know they have a dry area to run around in on wet days. They can even dustbathe if it's not totally pouring. I think it's healthier for them this way. So worth the money and time.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Totally x2 on this. Last year I clamped a tarp to my run roof whenever rain was coming, which was a huge pain (I couldn't find clear tarps so had to keep putting them on and taking them off), so this year I added a fixed, sloped roof made of clear polycarbonate panels (inspired by a coop build I saw here). So nice to know they have a dry area to run around in on wet days. They can even dustbathe if it's not totally pouring. I think it's healthier for them this way. So worth the money and time.

I think I will definitely have to invest in a roof then!! Where do you get the panels and are they expensive? My dad keeps saying how expensive the chickens are already hah

 

[Ballerina Bird]

I think I will definitely have to invest in a roof then!! Where do you get the panels and are they expensive? My dad keeps saying how expensive the chickens are already hah

These are the ones I got:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Suntuf-2...gclid=COyJwOvN88kCFZFlfgodciwGBQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

If you or someone in your house knows how to build things, it's not that expensive -- I had to pay someone to put them in for me. I also learned the hard way that you can't connect them to each other with adhesives of any kind. You'll need to have some sort of framing or beams running along the roof of your run that you can attach each one to. But the panels are easy to cut and easy to attach to wooden beams with screws. Mine are sloped so the water runs off them.

 

[blucoondawg]

You should be able to get panels at a lumber yard or a decent home improvement store like home depot, Menard's, lowe's. But ya they probably aren't overly cheap and you also have to frame a structure tooi attach them to over the run so you will also need some lumber and hardware