heating the coop?

[pefferlawchicken]

we are building our small coop and we dont have a heat lamp but we do have a vert small round forced air hearter and i was windering for the winters if we could cut a hole in hte wall of the coop about in the middle and put it there and just let it run at nght to keep the hens warm ?? any clues?

 

[cybercat]

Are you insulating the coop at all? Think of house insultion you know outside wall insulation inside wall. That should do the job well and if you have rose comb or pea comb chickens you will not have much to worry about.

 

[Mahonri]

I'm thinking insulation and a window AC unit about now.

 

[pefferlawchicken]

well i have these eggs in the bator and we are keeping 4

silkies
belgian bearder d'anvers
buckeyes
white wyandottes

whats the hardyest because it gets to like -25 to -30 here somtimes in winter

and yes i was planning on insulating what is the cheapest ?

 

[patandchickens]

DO NOT DO THAT, in my strong opinion... first, it will TORPEDO your hydro bill; and second, I'd be real leery of using something like that anywhere near a dusty environment like a coop (heater is off during day, gets dust or bedding on the element, then turns on, *poof* roast chickens)

Look, if you can afford the hydro bill to run that heater you can FOR SURE afford to buy a buncha insulation for your coop (which you wouldn't need to *buy* anyhow since you can get insulating material free if you look around); and likewise you can afford to buy a heat lamp, which will be cheaper to run (b/c you can reduce wattage as needed) and relatively speaking safer. A heat lamp is like $10-20 for the fixture plus $5-15 for the bulb, depending what exactly you get. That's *all*.

Really.

Good luck,

Pat