Heating and supplemental light for winter

[ChickenCanoe]

Everyone's situation is different. Power outages are common here in winter. We had 4 one year that lasted a week or more. My generator may be buried in snow so do I heat the coop or try to get it to the house to keep the refrigerator/furnace running

I'm with you on the fire thing. I really don't see fire as a reason not to heat.

 

[RonP]

I think this is the right forum for this.
I am having trouble keeping my hens laying for several reasons but I think one is not enough light and heat. My coop is a converted shed 6x6 with a barn roof it connects to an enclosed 12x12 run that has a tin roof and wire sides. I am running a 12ga extension cord from the house out to the coop and planning on adding a heat lamp connected to a thermostat recepticle (on at 35 off at 45) and then setting a timer on a white light (100watt = CFL). My question is: Am I doing this correct? Should the white light be in the run or the coop or both? Will a 250watt red heat lamp be enough to warm them this winter?
I live in S NJ where we get pretty cold and damp winters, nothing compared to the northern states but still expect many days that are at or below single digits.
Is a CFL bulb proper light to fool the chickens into laying?

Ok, your situation is almost exactly like mine.

I also share your climate.

Assuming cold hardy birds, and nothing exotic, you will not need additional heat in your coop.

Make sure it is well ventilated, and draft free.

Also make sure they have access to liquid water.

Lots of information on draft free ventilation on this site.

Lots of information on water heaters, I use a modified version of the "cookie tin heater".

As for light...

I posted this on another query, this is how I do it, works extremely well, hope it helps:

There are a lot of opinions on supplementing light to keep the chickens laying during time period where there is less than 12-14 hours of available daylight.

My coop gets 16 hours of light 351 days per year.

I turn lights off for 14 days to have birds go into a controlled moult late September .

Having had to install electricity for the thermostatically controlled water heater, I took advantage and installed a lighting system.

My system has two timers. The first is set to turn the lights on at 5:30am, off at 9pm.

Power goes on, passes through a photocell, then to a 300 lumen LED bulb, 4.8 watts, in the 8x8 foot print coop, and 2 4.8 watt LEDs for the 14x14 foot print outside run.

I light the run because I found the birds huddled outside the coop door in the dark one 5:30am morning...
They have access to the run 24/7, as it is as secure as the coop.

The lights are on only when it is dark enough outside to be necessary.
The time on very closely mimics my Summer Solstice in NJ.

The second timer is set to go on at 8:30pm, off at 9:30pm, a diffused 200 lumen LED 4 watt bulb.
This low light allows the birds to settle in before all lights out and 8 hours of darkness.

This system costs less than $5 per year to operate..