Heat lamp???????

[Judy]

Fred's Hens :

This topic gets beats to a pulp here, but again, what did the breeder's of these chicken do for "heat" 100 years ago when these chickens were kept, bred and developed all over North America?

There was no electricity.

Cold weather hardy birds were bred on this continent, by North Americans and many still bear the names like Delaware, Plymouth Rock, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, etc. These breeds were bred and kept for a century before anyone ever thought they needed extra winter heating. Poor ventilation is small coops is the culprit far too many times. The vast majority of the issues are caused by moisture frosting, not temperatures per se.

X2. The OP's rooster comb very likely was lost to humidity, not cold. He does not give his location. I'll bet it's not Alaska -- up there they know better than to heat.

That pic of a small coop with a heat lamp is a disaster waiting to happen. Double hung is only a little better than single hung. A house across the street from me burned to the ground the other day because of some puppies and a heater on the front porch, a familiar story this time of year.​

 

[kuntrygirl]

Here in Louisiana, we are not accustomed to cold temps, so whenever the temps are 29 degrees and below, I take out the heat lamps and put them in each of my chicken stalls. I do not have chicken houses per say that are fully closed in. I have coops/stalls that are covered with chicken wire that they go in to roost.

Pics of some of my chicken coops/stalls.

 

[teach1rusl]

Many people provide a little heat for their birds, although the majority doesn't. Most of the people who do provide heat either view their chickens as pets or have more delicate breeds. There are always safety issues, especially since most people don't wire their coops as safely as house wiring, and don't (generally) use as much safety common sense as they would in a house. A very small coop is a greater risk than a large coop with most heating sources, as you just don't have much clearance. Sweeter heaters and other flat panel type heaters (they don't generate much heat - which most who heat just want to take the edge off anyway, but don't use a ton of power either) would be your safest bet in really small coup. They are pricier though...

 

[WhySayWhat]

I'll be interested to see if the chickens I get this spring huddle aroung our dryer vent in the cold months next year. We're building the coop and run under the deck of our house and it just so happens that that's where the dryer vent is as well. We're building a small hardware cloth cage to go over it, so the chickens can't get in it or damage it, but that's the only "heating" they're gonna get from me.