Cold weather is here...Do you let them outside in frigid temps?

[the1much]

getting grown chickens,, or chicks? and even if its 20 degrees here,, i let mine out,, if they get cold, they go in.

 

[inesuea]

are there any specific breeds of chicken that are good for a new owner???

 

[the1much]

Quote:
free ones

i cant answer that 1 ,, i think mutts are the best.

 

[inesuea]

thats good to know haha

i am thinking of getting some bantys..

 

[the1much]

well ,, wait till someone with banty's chimes in,, cause i aint got none of those midget thingy's

 

[derby]

My Dad had 300 chickens when he was a kid. He is very concerned about mine being in an unheated coop. He says they put light bulbs in their barn to keep theirs warm. But then again - their barn burned down. Hmmmm.....

Derby

 

[Mrs MIA]

300 birds would put off enough heat to keep any barn warm!

I have about 30 birds in my coop, and it's toasty when they're all in there.

If you only have a couple of adult birds, you might want to add a little heat when it gets really cold. Now, for me, REALLY cold is anything below 0°F. Which is what it is right now, and all the birds are outside with the exception of the ones on the nests. But if you have a dozen or more, they will huddle and pool their warmth. A heat lamp on their waterer will keep it from freezing, but some people don't even do that... they just knock out the ice and refill it.

If you have chicks, then a heat source is a must until they're fully feathered. My 6 week old chicks went outside when it was in the 40s, and slowly acclimated. Now they're 15 weeks old, and out there with the rest of them right now. So they really will do fine. If you give them heat, and then something happens like the power goes out, or the bulb burns out at night, and it's below freezing, what will your birds do then?

 

[LynneP]

I've learned a lot from Tori, you really need to listen to what she says about feathercoats and power outages! We've had massive storms that left us without power for days, so I refuse to baby my birds. In an emergency I have a brooder lamp offset from the roosts and I will use a waterer with a heated base, knowing that if we lost power I can get warm water from the house, because we maintaina generator.

And if you do live in severe winter zones, it's wise to choose suitable breeds or mixes for that...

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Close (partly or wholly) the upwind-side vents on really windy days

If the chicken door is on the upwind side of the building (too late to change that I guess <g>) then you may need to build a little vestibule or wind-blocking wall, like so:
_______________
| |
|
|
_________coop wall__________| d o o r |_______

inside of coop


in order to baffle the wind that would otherwise scream right straight into the coop.

Help any? Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
The best way to keep the water from freezing is a heated waterer base (or similar arrangement, e.g. electric dogbowl, that 2 gal waterer they're selling this year that has the built-in heating element, etc)

Freezing of the eggs is not nearly such a problem as you might think and actually I doubt you will have problems with it as long as you do another egg check around dinnertime. Eggs freeze at a substantially lower temperature than water does, plus they are starting out hen-temperature and take a while to cool, plus they are laying there half-insulated by a nice deep fluffy bed of shavings or hay in your nestbox

Good luck, have fun,

Pat