Extreme Cold (below zero) winter poultry care??

[HWNKN]

I took a 3 gallon bucket with a lid that has a hole in it, ran a Aquarium heater set at 68 degrees. I hung the bucket high enough up that the girls could easily drink from the drinking nipples I installed on the bottom of the bucket. I also installed a safe heat lamp with a red bulb to increase the temperature in the coup also. The electrical is all tied to the top of the coup and has to GFIC switches inline, one is on the outlet feeding power to the area and the other is in the coup also acting as a on off switch.This maybe an over kill but oh well. I found all these tips all over the internet. So thank you to all that share your knowledge. I hope this helps. Aloha from Utah

 

[matven123]

I hit -6 Fahrenheit today and I have made a small water heater for 5$ I used an old cookie tin poked a hole inside and baught a light socket/110 outlet adapter and plugged a 40w bulb inside the tin it is warm enough to keep my water thawed and I just put the water dish on top of it

 

[matven123]

I have no supplemental heat in my coop and the walls are only 1x10 planks and the girls do just fine, no supplemental light and I still avg 6eggs from 9 layers

 

[slordaz]

my crazy hens don't like insulated coop and chose an open horse stall still have a problem when it gets to below negative 20 and looking for other solutions for the watering as below negative 20 haven't had much luck with anything the metal waterer with heating base didn't work was a waste of money as it says only works to -20 and first day below that it was trash.

What we did was lined the stall walls with hay bales, put extra hay down on the rubber floor and in addition to the regular feed take them a bowl of oatmeal with about 1/2 tsp of garlic and another of cayanne pepper in the evening and morning, helps em keep warm from the inside besides huddling up. as they aren't babied they look funny but they get in extra down like cattle and horses do undercoats. We had chickens with down poking out through the feathers but they survived Idaho winter but had to take water out 4 sometimes 5 times a day for them. they do have a smaller stock heater for plastic pales, so going to go get one of those and the pale that goes with that and see if that works as it is designed for inside a plastic pale.

our flock last year was 2 roosters and 10 hens

this year our flock is 2 roosters and 17 hens as they hatched out in the spring and we kept some of them. the rooters always having to be up top when they are enclosed lost their combs last year so won't be a problem this year, but we had over a week we were -20 to -30 before the windchill, the hens stayed on perch or went into a cave on floor surrounded by hay bales or the brooding box that is in between hay bales and didn't have any issues we didn't loose any chickens or roosters due to the extreme cold

our flock make up is
BR
leghorn
BO
BS
amerecuana
and now a bunch of barnyard mixes.