Cold Weather

[BantamFan4Life]

Welcome to BYC!

Happy you joined us!

 

[leighton]

Welcome to BYC

 

[mistychickens]

Hello
My first winter with chickens too (2 sussex, 2 maran). So far the girls love going outside no matter what the weather. I am a bit worried about them getting wet and cold during the day and going to bed like that. Can that cause problems? No heating in the hen house but plenty of ventilation and they all snuggle up together in the nest boxes rather than roosting, as they have done all year. Also, I don't really have anywhere dry outside when it rains/ snows so they can't have their dust baths, which i think they are missing, should I make them something?

 

[roostersandhens]

 

[sourland]

How are your birds handling the weather?

 

[molson3]

Hello all,
I have two things I'd like to share with you. The first involves the humidity problem in a closed up coop. We’ve removed about 2/3rds (or better) of the moisture issues with what we call the "coop poop tray" We’ve got two roosts, under that and built about two feet off the floor, there's a tray we made out of plywood and lined with a heavy plastic, this tray catches all the droppings, Cool no? Ah... but here's the real deal, the tray has about 2" inches of barn lime in it and dries out the droppings before they even hit I think. J We have 20 birds camped over it at night so things pile up very quickly and it must be cleaned every day or two, if it piles up deep it won’t dry. Clean up is easy also, we bought a cat box scoop, you know the ones with the little grooves in it to let the litter out and hold the poop in, it works great and makes it a pretty quick clean up. I think one of the biggest benefits is that our coop doesn't smell like a coop.




Now, the second thing I'd like to share is (and I've read it on BYC many times) heat lamps. We've got a water container on the floor of the coop that's starting to freeze up at night, being we’ve had single digits in MN. So me thinks, what quicker and easier way to stop that than point a heat lamp at it, right? Well we found out last night that that wasn't such a good idea after all. Last night I was up until 2:00 am with a very restless one year old Brittany we call Chubs. Chubs and the chickens play together and at times share cracked corn together, there I’ve made the association between them, good friends. Last night was very much out of the ordinary though, Chubs would not let us go to bed, he kept running for the door, he whined, he barked and raised all kinds of commotion until the wife said, “ok, out with you”

Well, (wink wink) we both spent a better part of the night outside freezing. I walked around the yard, I checked all the out buildings, I peeked in on 20 chickens and found no problems. So I went to bed and Chubs slept inside the house by the front door. Now, the rest of the story, I've heard dogs can predict things before they happen and I am now a believer. I’m going to jump ahead here with the story a little bit. We monitor our coop with a remote digital thermometer from the house, this morning we noticed the coop was a little cooler than normal (38 degrees indoors & 8 degrees outdoors).

Anyways, I went out to do my morning chores, when I opened the coop door and went in everything appeared normal except the faint smell of smoke. We still have our 20 chickens but this morning they were all in the sun room instead of the coop, which is really out of their typical morning routine. (https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/lil-chicken-hilton) It was then that I discovered the reason behind it. The heat lamp was off and had signs of smoke and an overcooked electrical cord. Yep you guessed it; the socket had melted off and filled the coop with smoke, and as we all know smoke rises. I was very proud of the chickens though, they had enough survival instinct to head for the sun room which is at the lowest point of the two buildings, and even though it was freezing and dark out there, they apparently knew they'd be able to breathe better.

This above pic is the out of the coop door, next is leading into the run and the following is inside the sun room
.
Thanks to 20 smart chickens, we still have the opportunity and need to buy a new heated watering system. This was a very close call and an extremely valuable lesson learned for a first year chicken farmer. Go Girls!

 

[kjfrogster41]

Welcome to BYC. It is a great site for learning and just getting to know more about feathered friends and all that entails.
I live in Maine, a fairly cold place in winter. We have a small flock of R.I.R.s and this will be their third winter. I worried for naught that first winter, thought they might get frost bite but when it gets REALLY COLD (minus temps), they crowd inside their small hen house and keep each other warm. They have a coop that's a converted dog kennel with a converted dog house inside the coop that is their laying house. We add a great deal of hay and dry leaves to both coop and house and the the coop has a roof and is surrounded by tarp except for a small area that lets in sun light and offers ventilation. They have a run too and go out in that during the day.

But, honestly, I think they dislike the cold. They have learned to manage but what a change when the weather starts to warm up! Today the dears spent most of the time huddled together in a small sunny corner. They will some times stand outside on our back deck pecking at the door to be let in. Funny cause they have not been indoors since they were young chicks.