fellow northern midwesterners, how do you insulate you henhouse?

[moonhouse]

I live in the city of Minneapolis and it gets quite chilli in the winter and quite hot in the summer. I'm wondering what other Minnesotans, North Dakotans, Iowans do to keep their chickens warm in the winter. I will have three hens. I understand that putting light in the henhouse makes sense, however, what material do you use to keep the henhouse insulated? If you have a tractor I would really like to know how you insulate and sending pictures would be great too.

 

[bigzio]

moonhouse, Welcome to BYC. I use the commercial pink fiberglass isulation. I then cover that with Luan paneling to keep the hens from getting at the insulation, because it is toxic for them if they can peck it. Keeps the coop warmer in winter and cooler in summer.

I've heard of someone who used straw in the walls and covered it with chicken wire to keep it from falling out. Don't know what the R factor would be though.

bigzio

 

[apbgv]

I don't have any insulation in my coop, I did plastic all the hardware cloth around the run areas that attach to the coop. I believe they did better than I did when we had that super cold spill this year. I did run a heat lamp for about a week to keep it around 20 degrees or so. Didn't seem to have any frostbitten combs, I did lose my white faced spanish bantam though, being a mediteranean breed I guess they aren't very cold hardy the rest of the girls are silkies, 2 cochins and 1 standard BR. They got plenty of scratch and corn to help with the cold.