Cold col, what is too cold

[Barry Michelle]

Its been down to 6 here in MI's UP. My coop is 8'X12'x8 1/2'high is not insulated and is very well ventilated. My chickens free range in the day and seem to love the snow. I have lots of roosting space, even when its really cold my birds roost in there "normal" places. My bantam Orpingtons do like to snuggle a bit more with my Jersey Giants. I was worried about the cold, but all I do is put out warm water when I open the coop in the morning. Egg production still going up (my girls are all this springs chicks), I'm at 8/18. Thanks for all the great info!

P.S. As a fire fighter in a rural area, MOST of the house fires I go to are in the spring and started in a brooder, so please take care and good luck!

 

[FunWithFowl]

You don't need to add heat. Proper ventilation is most important. If moisture can't escape from the coop it will freeze causing frostbite even at relatively warm temperatures but with good ventilation they'll be fine well below 0F. We attach a tarp along the two wind prevailing sides of the run to provide exterior shelter. Black sunflower seeds has been provided as a daily treat since the start of November here. It's high fat content is readily converted to energy making for an excellent winter supplement.

I'll put up the tarp today as this weeks high is going to be 34F, low of 12F. A heated water dispenser is very handy. I use the plastic 3 gallon from Farm Innovators, others use home made pie tin with small light bulb inside as a warmer for metal dispensers and still others use the plastic heated dog bowls.

 

[FunWithFowl]

...

You don't need to add heat. Proper ventilation is most important. If moisture can't escape from the coop it will freeze causing frostbite even at relatively warm temperatures but with good ventilation they'll be fine well below 0F.

 

[FunWithFowl]

This will be my first winter with our girls. I have been concerned about the cold so I've been trying to read as much as I can. A lot of people talk about proper ventilation. Can you please give some pointers on ventilation? I have an 8x8 coop that is occupied by 8 chickens and 4 ducks we live in Northwest Indiana near Chicago. Ay tips would be greatly appreciated; not just by me but our girls too!

 

[Horse Chick]

Because you have no holes up near the roof, you really aren't getting ventilation in this coop. That means that there's no escape for any ammonia or moisture. Were this my coop, I'd drill a several 1" -1.5" holes right through the wood up near the top on the short sides of the coop and at least four up near the gutter in the back. Then I'd cover the holes either with 1/4" hardware cloth or, (easier but more expensive) with ready-made vent covers meant for the eaves of a house to make sure predators can't get in--we have weasels at our place, and they can get in through anything 1" or larger. Or coop is built like a house and MUCH larger, but we have vents under the eaves of the roof and a vent in each roof peak. We have a smaller coop--the "pullet house," and we intentionally left the walls short and filled in the rest with hardware cloth, but the pullet house is only used in the summer so we weren't worried about cold.







We need to put screening over the roof peak vents because we have issues with starlings, but thankfully that peak is 14' high and predators haven't made it through that hole yet.

I don't know if you can do deep-litter in your set up. We built the coop with deep litter in mind, and it has a board that keeps the litter from spilling out into the feed room. If you're considering it, you should search deep litter method here on BYC before you decide. Basically, though, it's only cleaning out the coop once or twice a year. The rest of the time you just take out any really wet spots, stir the litter around with a pitchfork, and put some more shavings on top as needed. If you do that, you'll REALLY want to add some ventilation to make sure you don't get an ammonia spike. You might decide that sticking some Styrofoam up underneath the hen house is easier.

I think I'd add either plastic or a couple of bales of straw around the bottom of the run to block wind this winter. Getting out of the wind is important for critters.

Ok we can definitely drill those holes up high on the short sides and under the gutter on the long side with no windows. I have leftover hardware cloth from covering our little 12x12 windows. Yeah there are some design boo boos in this one, it is our first and hoping we make it ok through the winter. I do keep a thermometer inside and am constantly registering 34-40 even on nights it is in the mid 20's. I've decided in the spring we will be expanding our pen, probably doubling it and eventually will build more of a shed type coop that I can walk in. We're getting some baled hay tomorrow as I want to start using some in their areas to play with and maybe for some warmth. Installing the wind breaker plastic tomorrow. Course this week it will be in the low 50's during the day and high 30's at night....so they will get a break. Good thing too cause I've had 2 hens in my basement (not heated but still warmer than outside) and this will make it easier for them to adjust to outside. They got attacked by another hen, miss bully and she has also been removed. She will go back in a few days after the injured ones so that hopefully she looses her place as queen chick.

 

[MsChickenMomma]

My barn doesn't have any electricity, but my chickens are usually fine through the winter. I just refresh their water often so it doesn't freeze. I have 15 chickens, and every night I snuggle them up together so they are all side by side. The small hens are always in the middle, and the mischief makers are always on the end. Some of my hens have their "BFF's" so they always have to be next to each other. Chickens are very good at keeping warm. One of my hens can't jump, so she sleeps in the nest boxes, and even she stays warm enough. She usually just snuggles into the shavings. As long as you have more than one chicken, they should be fine.
My chickens always use each other to keep warm.

-Ashley

 

[mrcush]

It was 13 degrees this AM in Wisconsin. I have a small coop with only two hens in it. Though cold last night was dry and no wind. I have the run sheltered so there is no draft into the coop. They looked comfortable this AM.

I do use a heated water bowl but that's in the run - no room in the coop.

All info I see is not to heat the coop. Just keep it dry and draft free.

When we get really cold (and in Wisconsin that means the minus digits) I'll probably close up the coop even more and just leave a crack open for ventilation.

What's the reasoning behind not heating the coop? I wired an infa red heat lamp into my coop and have had it on for a few weeks here in Michigan. It got pretty cold and then warmed back up and I just kind of left it on. I would almost be afraid to shut it off now since they are used to it.

 

[missinmee11]

I have four girls, and when they first started to lay, all but one figured out the nesting box. I put her into the nest box the next day, with some of the other girl's eggs already inside. You could almost see the little light bulb light up in her head because she understood right away, and has laid in the nesting box ever since. Sounds like your little silky bantee might have been a little stressed by her fist egg, and she may not have been huddled up with your other girls while they were roosting, so it would make sense that she may have gotten a little cold as well. As long as it's not drafty, I would think she'd be ok. Best of luck.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

Ok we can definitely drill those holes up high on the short sides and under the gutter on the long side with no windows. I have leftover hardware cloth from covering our little 12x12 windows. Yeah there are some design boo boos in this one, it is our first and hoping we make it ok through the winter. I do keep a thermometer inside and am constantly registering 34-40 even on nights it is in the mid 20's. I've decided in the spring we will be expanding our pen, probably doubling it and eventually will build more of a shed type coop that I can walk in. We're getting some baled hay tomorrow as I want to start using some in their areas to play with and maybe for some warmth. Installing the wind breaker plastic tomorrow. Course this week it will be in the low 50's during the day and high 30's at night....so they will get a break. Good thing too cause I've had 2 hens in my basement (not heated but still warmer than outside) and this will make it easier for them to adjust to outside. They got attacked by another hen, miss bully and she has also been removed. She will go back in a few days after the injured ones so that hopefully she looses her place as queen chick.

Good luck! Your Miss Bully might be taken down a few pegs by being moved out for a while. Sounds like you're doing the right thing there.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

I see no reason to test how much a chicken can take of cold any more than I would do for a dog, child, etc. It's 22 below zero today and they have an Eco Heater on the wall with a thermostat which turns on at 35 and off around 40. Fourteen eggs from Fourteen young hens yesterday. The coop has ventilation, about five inches of opening at the top of two walls because it is humidity which is the problem in a winter coop. I change the straw on the floor almost weekly because it softens (getting moist). I could not live with myself if I thought that they were just surviving an ordeal I created for them. So rant away about how little combs freeze, how tough your birds are, how much electricity you save, but keeping a coop just above freezing is the way I do it - not every hen cuddles with another on the roost, not every hen is away from the vents all the time, not every hen likes to be at full fluff trying to survive.

It's not that we're testing how cold our hens can take it, it's that for most people here--obvs. not the people in Manitoba, or Anchorage, or anywhere else it drops below -20 and stays there for the winter--it rarely gets lower than 10 below and the hens will be fine. For most animals, they are healthier if they have more ventilation and the barn isn't heated. We don't heat horse barns, or dog houses, or cattle barns, or pig barns either. In fact, closing up a horse barn or cattle barn tightly enough to heat it is a really good way to cause respiratory problems. The animals are in and out of the barn during the day and it's not good for them to go from a warm to a cold environment and back again. So we keep them out of the wind, we make sure that the area they live is insulated and well bedded and dry, and that's the best way to care for them. We're not sitting here laughing about what Iron Chickens we have--we know that making our hens dependent on supplementary heat in our environment will not be doing them any favors. If the temperature dipped below -20 at my place, yes, I'd hang a heat lamp above the perches to bring the temp up a couple of degrees. But for most winters here, we only get to -25 with wind chill, which is not a factor in my hen house.