Extreme cold - what is “too cold?”

[aart]

extra scratch in mornings ( canned corn works too ). You want to get that internal furnace of theirs going by digesting food.

Digesting their regular full nutrition feed will keep them just as warm as canned corn or scratch.....and be healthier

 

[SusanCranford]

I live in NE Texas. We have mild winters with temps that rarely drop below freezing. But the polar vortex is heading our way and the low on Monday is 1 degree F. Temps will be in the teens and 20’s over the next week.
I put a thick layer of new straw in the coop today. I have 8 hens, so they generate quite a bit of heat themselves.
How cold is too cold? Do I need to put a heater in the coop during the coldest nights? Anything else I can do to help keep my hens safe?
I attached a picture of our coop.

I'm in north texas also and we are prepping for the unusually cold weather. It's been in the 20's for 3 days. Nothing compared to our northern states, but definitely far from the norm here. We wrapped the run with clearish plastic tarp at the beginning of winter, leaving enough gaps at the top for ventilation. We also have a roof on the run, so everyone is nice and dry. I have plugs for the windows, so they are securely in place, but we do have ventilation holes up in the eves of the roof.

Keeping the water from freezing took some thinking...my girls have a big stainless waterer, so I took a flat stepping stone that was about the size of the waterer's base and heated it up in the oven and put it under the waterer...no frozen water today. With this in mind and thinking about the -1 we are supposed to get Monday. I took a few more sand stones from the garden and heated them up in the oven. I placed these is a pot and let it sit to see how hot it got...didn't want to risk burning the girls. It was pleasantly warm to touch for a few hours...so that will be our plan for Monday morning.

I'm not really worried about my two Braham's or our Copper Muran. They are sporting full down coats and pants. Holler, my americana, is lighter feathered and no pants, so hopefully she will cuddle up with her buddies. We've done as much as we can at this point. We'll keep an eye on thing and if anyone looks like they are suffering, they will come into a kennel in the garage, but I really don't think that will be necessary.

Wish I could bring them a cup of hot cocoa in the morning, but they will have to do with warm mash and warm water.

We've added lots of bedding, but will be adding more tomorrow. I also tossed in a bunch of scratch and mealworms in the run so the girls would work the run floor up and get full advantage of the heat being created by all the composting leaves, wood shavings, cypress fronds.