Cold coop, snow, brrrrr

[doglover1]

That all makes sense, thank you. I guess being human when I go in there and see my breath I think too cold.

 

[aart]

Love Mrs. K's car analogy to demonstrate trapped humidity.

Another good analogy, bobbi-j's I think, is to wear your down coat and all your other outdoor winter gear and keep it on inside the warm house. Too warm aren'tcha?

I suppose if you have -20F for 24/7 for days on end, some kind of heat might be necessary.....
.......but you still need that ventilation.

 

[doglover1]

I just may put little down coats on my birds this winter LOL. We're expected to get a long harsh winter this year. I'll just make a mini firepit in there and hand them a bag of marshmellows lol.

 

[chickens really]

I just may put little down coats on my birds this winter LOL. We're expected to get a long harsh winter this year. I'll just make a mini firepit in there and hand them a bag of marshmellows lol.

Don't forget their wool socks and boots...lol


Cheers!

 

[doglover1]

Ok now I thought that might be pushing it LOL!

 

[aart]

I just may put little down coats on my birds this winter LOL. We're expected to get a long harsh winter this year. I'll just make a mini firepit in there and hand them a bag of marshmellows lol.

Pssst....they are already wearing them

 

[Blooie]

Really you need to worry much more about the dryness of the coop, than the warmth. Warm air holds more moisture than cold air. Damp chickens are cold chickens. Dry chickens are warm. This is a very common mistake, that I made when I got started. Think of a car with people in it in cold weather, it almost immediately begins to fog up. That moisture collects on the walls, the ceilings, the birds feathers, combs and wattles. This is when you will get frost bite. When you shut up your coop to maintain the warmth, what you really do, is produce a damp environment. With the best of intentions you are making it worse for your chickens.

It is considerably more important to have your coop as OPEN as possible. Your birds need shelter from the wind, but with their feathers and good feed, they are capable of keeping themselves warm in very cold weather, such as -20oF. Have a good deep bedding down below, open ventilation above their heads, set up your roosts so that their heads are 15 inches below the ceiling and 12 inches away from the wall. This lets the air circulate, pulling the warm wet air out of the coop. This keeps the birds dry. Dry birds are warm chickens.

Last year, I got a new coop. It has considerably more ventilation. I was surprised how much drier the coop was, when I opened the door in the morning to get eggs. I did not have any frostbite last year. It seems so counterintuitive, closed up = warm, but not in the chicken world. Cold and dry air = warm birds.

Mrs K

X 1000 We live in Northern Wyoming, not too far from Yellowstone Park. We get plenty of cold too - when I picked up my first batch of chicks it was -17, and believe me, the temps just went down after that! Some years our last snowfall is late May and recently we had snow on June 6th. So I feel your pain! This was us last week on October 12 - between 5-7 inches of the stuff:




I don't heat, nor is my coop insulated. But with plenty of ventilation it stays dry. We cover our run with greenhouse type plastic, but even that is not totally closed in. I made that mistake the first year, and when we'd go in the run moisture was running down the inside walls and dripping down our necks! <shudder> So now we leave the south side completely open unless the worst of the weather and wind is coming from that side. Our plastic there can be raised or lowered easily. On the north side it's open on the top above the people door, and the plastic doesn't go all the way to the ground on the west and east. We have had no weather related issues with our chickens at all. So @Mrs. K is absolutely spot-on about good ventilation being the key,and that's never truer than in winter when you'd think it would be the opposite! Good luck!!

 

[doglover1]

Thank you. Sorry to hear you got that white stuff. Mother natures been cranky lately.

 

[Blooie]

Thank you. Sorry to hear you got that white stuff. Mother natures been cranky lately.

Boy, that's no kidding!