Heater or heat panel -10

[BDutch]

No one is saying chickens are dying at 50F.

I wanted to read this to the end before giving a reply. But I really couldn’t wait any longer with this implication.

Chickens (breeds) who are accustomed to a climate with no extreme cold or heat do just fine at 50F/10°C.
Where I live it very rarely gets colder than 3F/-15°C at night or warmer than 38C/102F in the afternoon. My chickens are happy to go outside as long as there is no snow or heavy rain. They sleep closer together if it’s cold.

Chickens are known for their capability to adjust to a climate and other environment conditions within a several of chicken generations (if they are not pampered). This is why we have different chickens from different origins/ regions with different looks. Cold resistant chickens often have small combs and feathered feet. Please do not buy tropical or Mediterranean breeds if you live up north and don’t want to create special living conditions for them.

So my chickens (old Dutch and European breeds) are doing well without extra heat in our winters. But sure they lay less eggs in winter. The days are much shorter. The cold in autumn makes them go into a moult after their 1+ year. And the older chickens take a long winter break in laying because they need a lot of energy to keep warm, and its not the right time of the year to brood and raise baby chicks anyway. Having a winter break is part of the natural circle of life.

I have 3 hens who are 10+ yo. And they never suffered from cold except for 1 time 5 years ago when we had a very cold winter with about 2 weeks with low temps (24/7 freezing) and lots of snow.
The chickens stayed in the coop the whole time. Mainly on their roosts.

I make a few changes whenever its freezing cold:
First thing is to add a heating element to their water.
I put straw on the sand (sand is the usual bedding in the coop/small covered run). Straw has a great isolation value.
In autumn I cover the large hwc openings to keep the cold wind out of sleeping areas and the small roofed run.
This cold winter they needed more cover to be comfortable in the small run too.

I know my climate can’t be compared with the cold in the northern states and Canada but i do know that choosing the right breeds and accepting that chickens do not lay /don’t lay much in winter is important knowledge for all chicken keepers in northern climates.

In general the researches for commercial chickens are not usable for backyard chicken keepers/hobbyists.
Information on facebook, youtube is often not reliable. Sometimes it’s commerce (paid influencers) that makes the info unreliable.
Here on BYC people often get reactions from chicken keepers who know things bc they have chickens for many years. Have been sucking up information for many years. Some cracks are easy to distinguish bc they earned an educator badge. This is why info on BYC is more reliable than many other forums imho.

Edited some grammar and minor changes.

 

[NatJ]

No one is saying chickens are dying at 50F.

That was exactly my point. The guy in the video was comparing 50F and 100F as if they are equally uncomfortable for chickens. He ignored the fact that chickens do die at 100F (not all of them, but enough that people take it seriously.)

Whether chickens die is a rather important measure of how bad a temperature is for them.

And yes, some chickens are going to tolerate cooler temps because they are fluffier or stockier breeds. A Leghorn is a sleek, tight feathered bird with huge combs and wattles, whereas a Wyandotte is a stocky bird with a lot more floof and smaller combs and wattles. The Wyandotte was bred to have physical characteristics that are more cold tolerant.

I agree. But none of that was addressed in any of the sources that talked about chickens and cold stress. The sources you cited were talking about chickens as if they are all alike (the video) or they were talking about specific kinds of chickens that are not what people usually keep as backyard layers (studies on broilers, or on young chicks, or on commercial caged layers.)

However, many many many people will say that because a chicken’s body temp averages 106F, they are little furnaces and don’t need heat, and this is actually backwards. I mean, maintaining a body temp of 106F takes a ton of energy, and when the temps start to get cold, the chicken is going to to have to start using energy it normally would use to do body repair, resist parasites (and all chickens carry some parasite load 100% of the time, even in winter), regulate hormones, produce eggs, etc.. We can supply extra calories, that always helps, but once it starts getting really cold the extra calories can only do so much. By offering heat, we give the chickens the ability to keep warm without having to utilize all that extra energy, and then that energy can be used for maintaining the normal body processes. Yes, chickens can certainly survive in super cold temps, but it takes a big toll on them physiologically, and it is surviving, not thriving. My goal is to allow my girls to thrive through winter, so once spring and warmer temps come back, they are not playing catch-up physiologically.

I agree that a higher body temperature needs more energy to maintain it.

And the other thing is that giving your chickens heat doesn’t mean you need to heat the entire coop. Chickens should have choices. Some are going to want to be warm, others will be ok with being cooler. Just like us, and other animals. Some like it colder, others want warmer. But it’s allowing them to decide to move closer to the heat or away from it. I watch my birds do it all the time because I don’t heat the entire coop.

I don't see a problem with offering heat.
I do see a problem with statements that all chickens (no details) need heat below a certain temperature (same temperature for all chickens.)

I also see a problem with heating the entire coop to a temperature much higher than the outdoor temperature, unless there is a specific reason that it is needed for the situation in question. Unfortunately, that is what people assume you mean when you say, "chickens need heat below 50 degrees." People tend to miss the nuance of providing both warmth and access to cool temperatures. (I see it all the time on the threads about brooding chicks: people try to make the whole brooder an even temperature, and that causes trouble no matter what temperature they pick.)

We also need to think about it in the sense that because chickens do run an average of 106F, 50F is going to feel colder to them than it would for us.

They do have a higher body temperature, but they do not have the ability to put clothes on and take them off. So I'm not sure how to compare this. A naked person will feel colder, and a person bundled up for winter weather will probably feel warmer, than a chicken with all its feathers.

It’s so awful when people post about how chickens don’t need heat and then those same people are posting a few days later asking for help on how to treat frostbite. How can someone say that their chickens are doing just fine in the cold coop at night when they wake up with frostbitten combs and wattles? If I were waking up with frostbite, I wouldn’t say I was doing just fine in the cold.

I'm inclined to agree there.

But there are also many examples of chickens with frostbite at some temperature in a closed-up coop, and other chickens with no frostbite in a coop that is more open and has colder temperatures. So temperature is obviously not the only factor involved in whether a chicken gets frostbite.

And maybe people who have been keeping chickens with no heat have chickens that seem to doing just fine, but again I say chickens are prey animals and absolutely will not show if they aren’t doing just fine, and since we can’t ask them how they are actually doing, we rely on measuring things that we can quantify, which is where the studies come in.

I agree about them being prey animals and trying to hide their stress. Regarding studies, I know I've read ones from quite a while ago that showed more deaths in closed up coops that tried to stay warm, as compared with open coops that had more ventilation. That is part of the reason for the common advice to increase ventilation and not try to heat the coop: actual deaths were a definite sign that the chickens were not surviving, let alone being comforable.

Blocking off ventilation (which is the first response of many people) is not a good solution. Providing heat is more possible now than it was in the past, so yes that is sometimes a good solution.

And for those who don’t heat, their situation isn’t everyone else’s, and their condescending comments towards those who maybe want to offer heat or do offer heat makes new chicken owners afraid to even discuss it for fear of being told they’re stupid for even thinking it.

I agree that people should be free to ask questions, and people should be polite about how they answer.

I know it can be hard for people to politely answer questions where they think the answer is obvious (because their own chickens are doing fine in certain conditions), but it is still important to either be polite or leave it for someone else to answer. Of course this happens in many areas of chicken keeping, not just temperature.

I am a vet tech and I have dedicated my life to speak for those who cannot and I will continue to do so.

If people choose to not supply heat, those birds are their birds and it is pointless to argue with someone who is so convinced their experience is the only correct one. I am just going to keep presenting the information showing cold stress is a real thing and what it does physiologically and hope that someone else might benefit from the knowledge.

I wonder if the information would be accepted more easily if you present it in a little different way? I'm not sure exactly what way, it's just that I have noticed other subjects where people argue about information or accept it, and it looks to me like the very same information each time. (Part of that may be the randomness of who sees what thread, but I'm pretty sure part of it is in the details of how the information is offered. I just don't know what details make the difference.)

 

[Ted Brown]

I have one other comment, based on something @NatJ said in one of her posts above

I am a practical person that attempts to get to my goals with as little fuss as possible. I decided to get chickens because I live alone and wanted to have a responsibility that gets me out the door early and often through the day. Chickens do that in spades AND provide very positive feedback through their activities, antics and, of course, eggs.

BYC was the first site that came up when i searched for information. It was the key source of information about coop design and predators/pests which were my principal concerns when I started. I spent months reading the two sub-forums devoted to these topics. I found and followed the advice that caused me to choose a Woods' coop and how to keep my flock safe in these "pages".

This site is full of wise, generous, experienced and thoughtful people. One does not need scientific papers citing algorithms and numbers and theories.

I strongly encourage folks to use what is here for the asking, you need nothing more. Our modern world needs many more places like this.

 

[Debbie292d]

I wonder if the information would be accepted more easily if you present it in a little different way?

I get just as annoyed hearing “chickens don’t need heat” as I do hearing “chickens must have heat.” It’s how absolute those statements are made, yet they know practically nothing of the situation.

There are considerations. It depends largely on the breed, but also the age of the chickens, the climate, the housing and setup, and what the birds are acclimated to. In some cases, it’s also a personal decision based on the circumstances.

Most of that info isn’t included in the original post when someone asks about heat, yet people often jump in immediately, convinced they already have the answer.

 

[StinkyAcres]

You should definitely feel the heat if you are putting your hand on the panel that faces the birds no matter what the air temp is, that’s weird. You won’t feel any heat on the backside of it though. If you have it plugged in and the panel doesn’t feel warm at all, I would reach out to Sweeter Heater.

When it gets very cold, I drop the heater so it’s about 6 to 8 inches above the backs of the birds. If it isn’t too cold, I usually keep it around 10 inches above them.

My Sweeter Heater's definitely working, it's just that it doesn't seem to get warm enough for temps in the single digits and negatives. It could be that my hands are numb at those temps.

 

[The Bougie Coop]

My Sweeter Heater's definitely working, it's just that it doesn't seem to get warm enough for temps in the single digits and negatives. It could be that my hands are numb at those temps.

Since they are radiant heat, and those temps are so low, I bet you just need to keep your hand there for a bit longer period of time so it can absorb more heat energy. When it gets really cold here, I will lower the heater so it’s about 6 inches above my birds’ backs when they roost, too, so the energy doesn’t have to travel so far.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

This has been an interesting discussion! This is my first winter with chickens.

We’ve had surprisingly cold weather for December the last few weeks, mid-to-low 20’s at night. (All temps in this post Fahrenheit.)

Our five pullets (three celebrating their Hen Day on Jan 14) have a large (read: small) black plastic Nestera coop which until recently has only been used for sleeping by the two younger pullets and laying by the three older, who have been sleeping on outdoor roosts. The Nestera sits on a platform in an 8’x15’ open-air run wrapped in hardware cloth. No wooden walls, ceiling, etc. No heat source. They spend daylight hours outside the run in the back yard.

We wrapped the end in which the Nestera sits in a heavy clear plastic tarp, less than half of the run wrapped. One side is completely open to the rest of the run. The top is covered by a traditional tarp. It’s remarkably still in the wrapped end, even during high winds. Still plenty cold, though.

They have been completely fine, other than the several days with 20-30 mph winds, plus the morning when it was 10°, and they looked at me with that chicken expression of “why haven’t you fixed this?” They were out in the yard an hour later.

There’s nothing special about the breeds: 2 Easter Eggers, a Buff Orp, a Barred Rock, and a Speckled Sussex. They’re still ticked off at the lack of forage (because they ate it all), but they seem quite indifferent to the cold, other than seeking out sunspots.

In my experience so far, if they’re dry and can get out of the wind, they’re happy campers.

 

[Not-so Slick Chicken]

Hello all. First winter with chickens. I know they are are built for cold. We get the very cold weather in Iowa here. It was -15 last night. My friend borrowed me his TURBRO heater. I had it on in the 4x6x4 henhouse. I think it was 8 delegrees. Now here's my question. I don't think/want to heat the hen house. My wife thinks would be good just for the extreme cold days to keep it not so fridgide. I was looking at heat panels possibly? Maybe that might be a better option than an actual heat. Anyone have any thoughts on either?

We usually don't get as cold as you here, so situations are different.
Our birds don't get supplemental heat (*except for brooder chicks)

Whether you use supplemental heat or not, condensation and air blowing directly on them are things to be concerned about.

I've personally wanted to switch to round roosts with a wider diameter so they have a gentle curve to perch on, and can keep their little toesies warm in their feathers. I haven't done that yet, and don't know if they'd prefer it. But it feels like it makes sense, to me?
My dream coop would also be insulated.

A 4x6x4 coop seems fairly small, and might have more difficulty with condensation/ humidity if it gets too warm in the winter, and summer heat could be a concern in the future.

 

[Echelontheory101]

We all should want our chickens to thrive during the winter, not just survive.

This this this this!!!!!

 

[DonyaQuick]

Just want to add something that seems to often be missing in the heat vs no heat debate…regardless of ambient temperature, it can be enlightening to put a temperature sensor in your coop near where the chickens roost (not near the vents if possible) to know what is actually going on in there thermally if you are worried about stress on the birds or trying to diagnose a problem. I have some combined thermometer hygrometer sensors in my coops. It has showed me things such as that my smaller coops can naturally stay 10F or more above ambient when populated by birds, and that putting a heated waterer on one side of my 12x16 shed coop has zero impact on the humidity where the chickens roost, but neither of those observations is a universal that can be applied to an arbitrary other setup, even among my own setups. Measurement is always better than guessing.

Not that I would recommend this more broadly, but I also go out and have coffee with my flocks every morning when it is the coldest it will be or very close to it. I have sat with them in -17F in the past and -10F a couple times this year. Direct observation of bird health and behavior has just been more useful to me to make decisions for my birds and setups than anything else. This particular year I chose to use “free choice heat” for my birds via radiant heaters but haven’t always had those in my setups and may not always do it in the future depending on what I see from them. Just to throw it out there…from observation I know that I have several birds that consistently and deliberately avoid the heaters, just as I have some others that seek out the warmest places.