Hi everyone from Ely, Minnesota!

[This Old Spouse]

Hey everyone. Very glad to have found this forum. My husband and I have been talking about raising chickens for several years, and this will be the year (or next spring if that works out better) that we're finally going to do it. Our City Council finally gave all us "city dwellers" in a town of 3500 people the OK to have chickens in the city limits. Finally!

My first question is, what are the best cold tolerant birds? It does get brutally cold here in the winter, and short of bringing the ladies inside we're hoping to find a breed or two that can handle the cold. We'll build a nice, tight coop for them, but want to be sure we're starting off right.

Thanks for letting me join!

Lisa

 

[N F C]

Hi, welcome to BYC!

Chickens fare better in the cold generally than they do in the heat. You should probably stay away from breeds that have large combs and wattles because they can get frostbite but you'll have a wide variety of breeds to choose from. There's a really good article in the Learning Center that might help you figure out what fits your situation best:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/...cken-guide-to-picking-backyard-chicken-breeds

You can also check with other members in your state to see what they recommend:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/72771/minnesota

Have fun selecting your flock!

 

[Mountain Peeps]

Welcome to BYC, Lisa! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help.

Your best bet for chicken breeds are the dual purpose breeds. Rhode island reds, buff orpingtons, easter eggers, cochins, buckeyes, barred rocks, black australorps, wyandottes and sussex chickens are all some examples of dual purpose chickens that do very well in the cold. But, you also need to make sure they live in a warm shelter with proper ventilation. Here's some info on ventilation that you should know when building your coop.

You need good venting in your coop ceiling to rid the coop air of all this unwanted, moist air. If you don't put in good ventilation, during those really cold winter nights, all this moisture is going to rise up to the ceiling since warm air rises, and if it has no place to go, it will fall back down as water or frost making your birds very cold and uncomfortable.

The ideal way to create good venting is put in 1 square foot per bird of venting in the roof. Split it half and half on either side of the ceiling, one vent higher than the other. If the coop ceiling is not very high then position the roosts lower to the ground. You don't want any venting near the floor. This will create drafts. So what really does this do? It makes it so the moist air from the chickens slowly rises into this positive air coming in the lower vent and out the upper vent. Birds themselves put out heat. So they literally are roosting in a nice warm bubble of air. The moist air rises and goes out these vents. You don't want to disturb this air space around the birds with drafts. So make sure to seal up all cracks above the birds a foot or two.

Venting can be worked on those cold winter nights by closing off some of the lower vents to slow air movement in the coop. You never want to close off the higher vents. You will not retain much heat by closing off the vents, but you will keep the birds drier, especially if it is a bitterly cold night and you use heat lamps. Hot air meeting cold air creates condensation, so keep the air moving to prevent this.

And make sure you check out these links as well.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-pick-the-right-chicken-breeds-for-you
https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/9/coop-run-design-construction-maintenance

Good luck and I hope this helps.

 

[drumstick diva]

You could check out the coops section for suggestions and examples

 

[Michael OShay]

Welcome to BYC, Lisa. Glad you decided to join our flock. Congratulations on being able to get chickens. ) Alaska Backyard Chickens has a list of recommended breeds for Alaska's climate at http://akchickens.org/getting-started/recommended-breeds/. If these breeds can handle Alaska's brutal winters, they should handle your Oklahoma winters with no problem. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck in getting your flock.

 

[BantamFan4Life]

Welcome to BYC! I'm glad you joined us!

 

[Frindizzle]

Welcome to BYC!