Poor Christie! I am so sorry this happened to you and your birds.You said you’re putting aspirin in your water for the most badly burned one. Since others have mentioned airway inflammation, it occurs to me that, since aspirin is a potent anti-inflammatory drug, it might be appropriate to put it in the water for the rest of the flock as well. If they’ve avoided inhaling hot fumes, that would be a wonderful thing. I’d expect them to be showing symptoms by now but I’m not sure about the onset of symptoms for respiratory damage with smoke and super-heated air.
I want to put this very delicately. This is NOT your fault. You only know what you know. You made a perfectly reasonable assumption that as it was so cold, your chickens needed heat. They actually don’t need it—not where you live and not even where I live at nearly a mile high in western SD. Please, please trust me on this. Take the surviving heat lamps and pack them carefully with your chick-brooding supplies. You don’t ever have to put them in your coops again. This could have not only killed your chickens. You yourself and your family have had (thank God) a very narrow escape.
What your birds need from you, shelter-wise, in summer and winter is good ventilation, high up where it won’t make the roosts drafty, and protection from wind and rain. We started the autumn season this year with sub-zero temperatures and nearly two feet of snow. No heat in my coops. That was a very sudden onset to winter for us, but none of my birds have suffered from it. I have no heat in my coops. I have had 2.5 gallon buckets frozen nearly to the core, but no harm to my poultry.
If your coop gets humid with the cold, you may have some frostbite on the combs. Some of my large-combed cockerels have a few spots. They don’t seem to suffer with it, though I’d expect it must cause at least a little discomfort. Their behavior and apparent good spirits have not flagged. Unless you’re going for show birds, this isn’t cause enough to heat your coop. Adding more space and/or ventilation will do more toward handsome combs than a heat lamp.
As you rebuild, keep ventilation in mind, face them away from the prevailing wind, and make sure to give them lots of space. More space per bird means less humidity. Don’t insulate. That only holds in the moisture in. If you want light, I recommend LED or solar, permanently mounted, preferably to the ceiling. ( they can still be plug-in if necessary, with a timer too, if you like.)
Chickens are very tough birds—much tougher than we humans are. They honestly and truly don’t need supplemental heat where you live. In fact it can be a danger if you lose power in a particularly cold spell. Accustomed to the heat, they could suffer from the sudden loss of it.
Again, I am so sorry for your loss and at the same time, so grateful this tragedy wasn’t nearly as bad as it might have been. Don’t kick yourself. You didn’t know, but now that you do, this never needs to happen to you again.
