Have 3 that won't roost in coop, what temp is too cold?

[Manhen]

Its 11 degrees here tonight/this morning in November. A first for my birds....

 

[Folly's place]

Your coop is barely large enough for the three birds who like each other and roost in it. Having vinyl sheeting on the lower run walls will help with wind, but that chicken wire won't protect them from any predators except hawks and owls. Reinforce your run for some predator protection, or enlarge your coop area, or rehome someone.
Mary

 

[aart]

Seeing more of your coop and run would help.
There's a reason they don't want to be in there.
Right off the bat I can see the roosts in coop look smaller and rounder than the ones in the run. They may also be too high for such a small coop.

 

[southernlasssc]

Thank you everyone for your advice. Our freezing temperature have passed for this week. I am sure there are plenty more to come. We put up canvas tarp on the northern exposure and the big girls seemed to do okay. We figure we would rather risk a potential stress of cold temperatures over the known stress of confinement.

Our coop is small. We based the size on 10 inches of roost bar per chicken and there are two 3 foot bars. We wondered the same as what ART said about the height. We did one at 18 inches and one a bit higher. Maybe they don't have enough space to jump. We dedicated our square footage to the run space over coop space. The big girls' coop will be expanding in about a month. We got 4 chicks in September. We doubled the coop and run when we moved them outside, however, we did not take out the divider between the old and new. Once they are more size compatible we will take down dividers. The little girls go up in their coop every night so maybe they will be an example for the big girls.

We have added beefing up the chicken wire to our to do list. We did not realize it was no protection. We buried the bottom edge to protect against digging, but did not know some predators will just tear through it to get the chickens. We have a dog and maybe that has helped keep predators down.

Thank you again to everyone that took time out of their day to help us out. I never thought I would be a chicken person. I would have laughed at someone suggesting it to me 10 or more years ago. I wanted fresh eggs so we converted an old swingset fort into a run and coop. I love having chickens. They have such personalities and are fun to watch, plus the fresh eggs part.

 

[Folly's place]

Chicken keeping is addictive, and 'chicken math' is a real thing!
We started with six or seven bantams, and now get down to 35 or so in our flock each winter! And, predator proofing is a very big issue. Learn from our disasters, and beef everything up first!
Mary