Eastern Canadian winters

Alydup · Nov 19, 2018

New to chickens and looking for advice on how to keep my chickens warm in the cold. I feel a lot of info online deals with warmer winters. Here we go down to -40. I am wondering what others in extreme cold do? I have 4 backyard chickens. Two are nice and cold hardy, one naked neck (burr) and one little frizzle that is a bit of a reject and so doesn’t roost with the others. Their coop is in a corner of a barn in my yard with a door to go out to their run. They already have little interest to go outside. I have a flat panel chicken coop radiant heater that doesn’t really do much to raise the overall temp of the coop but they can go around it for warmth and I ordered a second. I also have a water heater figured out. BUT it is sooo cold already and will get even colder. I don’t like to think of them out there.l in the cold. Should I heat my coop or is that a bad thing? Any and all advice appreciated. Thanks!

BethyLeigh · Nov 19, 2018

I live in New England so climate is not all that warmer than the Maritines - last year was my first winter and I was surprised how well my chickens did without heat. Do you have cold hardy breeds? My key learning was that ventilation is more important than insulation. At first I had wrapped the coop in plastic and insulated with straw and the birds started getting frostbite even when it was only -10C / 15 F - then I did a little more reading and opened up a gap at all around the roof of the coop for airflow/ventilation and I didn't have any more problems all winter. We had one stretch with nights regularly -20 C and the chickens were completely fine! My chickens are heavy breeds with smaller combs