Extremely cold weather please help

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I feel for you as we too have had polar vortex round 2 in Wisconsin and it is NOT fun! While I'm terrified of potential fires, we have done our best to safely secure two reptile bulbs (from polar vortex round 1 2 years ago!) in the coop for the girls because they do get cold in those bitter temps, especially in the overnight when there is no movement and no sun. The bulbs are used only when the temps dip below zero (so we've been using them steady for a week now) and its some piece of mind that it's helping, even if only a little. I echo whoever commented on the plastic - our run is wrapped in heavy mil clear plastic and can warm up to 15-20 degrees higher than outside the coop.
 
Tayloralexthomas said:
Hi everyone,
This is our first year having chickens. We have 13. We live in Southern Alberta Canada which is usually known for their mild winters because of our chinooks. Every now and then we do get some colder weather so we weren’t to worried about our chickens, until this week when we ended up in a polar vortex. Our temperature highs during the day are -25C/-13F and at night it’s dipping as low as -35C/-31F.
Our coop is relatively large and luxurious in my opinion haha so we have added hay bails inside to close the space off to help trap heat. The girls have a heated closed waterer, it is well vented, and we’ve been using the deep litter method. The coop is also insulated but we cant seem to keep it warm inside. The temp usually reads 5 degrees warmer than the outdoor temp. So at night it can go down to -30C/-22F inside the coop. We’ve been going through this cold snap for a few days now and it’s not planning on going anywhere for at least another week.
They girls are definitely cold but they are still laying, and eating. We’ve been giving them warm oatmeal or veggies in the morning also.
So my question would be do we need to try and warm up the coop a bit and how?
We don’t want to use a heat lamp and I can’t seem to find ANY information online that is not contradicting or even talking about the cold weather that we are having.
Some ideas I’ve read/thought about are
-Using 5 gallon pails with hot water (I thought about adding a fish tank heater to keep the water warm)
-flat mounted heating pad for chickens (but I feel like our coop is too large)
Any advice would be greatly appreciated 🤗
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I live in CA so I cant help but your coop looks beautiful
 
icy_flames said:
-4 this morning in Colorado. Supposed to be -11 tonight. A couple of my hens have some frostbite going on and I also was going to do the Vaseline/ coconut oil route. Glad I researched first. Don't do it! I saw so many people say it made it worse.
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We are also struggling through the Colorado cold snap right now. Debating about bringing our three hens in for the night or continuing to heat the coop up a bit every couple hours using a ceramic space heater attached to a smart plug. I wish I knew what was best for my girls!
 
Ash.M said:
We are also struggling through the Colorado cold snap right now. Debating about bringing our three hens in for the night or continuing to heat the coop up a bit every couple hours using a ceramic space heater attached to a smart plug. I wish I knew what was best for my girls!
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As long as they have plenty to eat and drink, even -20f is fine.

It is important that there are no gusts on them, and they are protected from the weather, but still have good ventilation.
 

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