Well, 7F ambient outside the coop 7:00 am this morning in Central NJ. I don't concern myself with wind chills. It was quite windy regardless.
A balmy 14F inside the coop... Door open to secured run as usual (24/7), but everyone was inside. All looked and acted normal. Too windy to be outside is my guess. I don't blame them, the wind was howling.
Too warm for any meaningful "cold" test results. I need below 0F ambient outside, which we may or may not see in any given year.
Water heater and nest box heaters working flawlessly as designed, see links in my signature. I didn't bother to check for eggs, they will be fine in the heated boxes till daytime coop temperatures are below 10F, that won't happen during this cold spell. Actually it has not in the last 4 years since I built the heated boxes. I will collect them around 8pm, before box heaters turn off for the night.
I doubled the heated water supply to 10 gallons, simply added an inexpensive aquarium air pump, 1.5W, to circulate the water. This will give a minimum 2 week heated water supply for my flock. At 14F ambient inside the coop, a 50W flood kept the 10 gallon water supply at 34F. I was hoping for some ice but no joy... but thankful for uninterrupted electricity...
